The Ghost of Candlemere
by Charlemaine
Summary: BatB crossover. Christine is snatched from her family and must live within the walls of the Phantom's castle. But Erik got more than he bargained for in the stubborn willful girl... Will hate turn to love, or will the secrets of Candlemere eventually tear
1. Prologue

Prologue 

The cold highland wind whipped at her hair and cheeks as she plucked the last of the roses, laid them into the coarse straw basket and turned to leave the orchard. But then an impulse grabbed her and she ran instead to the arms of the blustery force, rosy face upturned in a simple childlike rapture.

"Christine!" She opened her eyes.

"What is my wildflower doing out in the cold, and without your bonnet?" Father had returned. "And what of my roses! There'll be hardly any petals left on them in this harsh wind. Now let's get your half-mad head out of the clouds and under a roof." A loving hand rested on her shoulder as he walked with her to an idyllic cottage on a pasture-green hillock, where she and her sisters had grown up.

Arnaud Klimt's little family comprised of himself, a middle-aged vineyard owner and his three daughters – the eldest Matilde, a glossy chestnut-haired beauty, followed by blond petite Marguerite and rosy-cheeked brunette Christine. The widowed man had ceased to participate actively in the wine business and now sold his quality grapes to established foundries. The house was a spacious but not sprawling affair, with a simple creamy whitewash and brick-red windowsills and roof. Fine days were spent strolling about the garden and flower orchard, when the three girls were freed from their studies. Unerringly modern in his ideas, Arnaud insisted that his daughters receive enough of an education to support themselves whether they ever needed to or not. After all, he could afford the best tutors in the region – that was a quality investment. Too bad Mattie and Meg would rather spend it on fripperies like new gowns for every party they were invited to. Of the three, it was Christine who devoured books almost religiously; her face lit up with enjoyment at the discovery of a new tome to fill her restless mind with. Her sisters often teased her that too much poring over books would age her prematurely into a dusty, dowdy spinster, but she accepted the teasing good-naturedly (although once, she had thrown a heavy book at Matilde's head for calling her a stuck-up little schoolteacher). Besides, she had her fair share of suitors, one of who pursued her quite determinedly, albeit in a most gentlemanly manner. Insofar he had never tried to steal a kiss or win favours such as handkerchiefs from her; Meg and Matilde would have gotten bored of him by now, even if he _was_ the son of a Vicomte. But Raoul de Chagny was also Christine's good friend, and she never refused an evening in his company.

Arnaud generally did not approve of elites like the de Chagnys, whom he described as "mincing, pinched-nose powdered creatures, an entirely foppish brand of people who have never made a dime of their own in their lives." However, when Raoul proved to be quite the opposite, Arnaud consented to let him court Christine – "See what you can make of my rambunctious daughter then; if you can tame this wild horse, she's yours!" he had chuckled.

Raoul was a good-looking boyish sort of man with charming but not "mincing" manners and an easy-going sense of humour. He shared with Christine a love of literature, and both appreciated each other's open-mindedness.

One rare balmy day they were walking through Arnaud's beloved rose orchards (Christine had always thought her father lovably strange for liking roses) when Raoul turned to her and said: "Christine, are you happy?"

"I am always happy when I'm with you, Raoul."

"Do you think…do you like to spend time with me? Or am I, say, a bother to you – a tiresome thorn in your side?"

She raised an eyebrow at him, lips quirked in a half-grin. "Raoul, you know I don't like it when people talk in riddles."

After a pause, he said, "You do like me, don't you?"

She smiled. "Of course I do. You're one of the best friends I ever had."

"No, I don't think you understand me."

"You don't mean – " She smiled again, but this time it was laced with apology. "I – oh, I don't mean to offend you, Raoul. But I cannot give you answer – I am not sure at the moment."

He frowned. "Christine, I'm so sorry."

"There is nothing to be sorry about."

"I have not ruined our friendship, have I? You will still pluck berries and exchange books and walk in the town square with me?"

She laughed a little at his anxiety. "Honestly, Raoul, I wish you wouldn't be so timid sometimes! Of course I will. I shall even kiss you if you like." And keeping to her word, she planted a kiss on his cheek – although it felt to him to be much too sisterly.

"Well, I'm sure in time you will come to like me as more than a friend, my darling Chrissy."

"Perhaps. But I shall have to make up my mind on that. You know, I can be notoriously fickle."

"On the other hand, I have always found you to be captivatingly strong-minded."

"And _you_ are a perfect man, everything a girl could want." She threw off her light cloak and ran to the patch of cherry trees ahead. "But I'm afraid my first husband will always be Adventure." She made to climb the nearest tree, and Raoul laughed at her rakishness. "Oh, do give me a hand up, Raoul!" she called. And they climbed and laughed raucously as if they were children.

This simple happy life was all the Klimt family had known, but it would be shattered when one day Arnaud failed to return from a long journey.


	2. Father's Disappearance

Chapter 1 Father's Disappearance 

It was a warm day for highland weather, as balmy as the afternoon when Raoul had almost proposed to Christine. She was just back from a round of berry-picking, her hands black with dried juice, when she saw a dark crimson cloth on the ground, fluttering slightly in the ever-present breeze. It was Matilde's shawl.

Her eldest sister, who rarely strolled outdoors for fun, and whom would certainly never leave her good shawl on the damp grass like that. Immediately an irrational sense of dread filled Christine's heart.

She rushed up to the cottage in time to see a white-faced Matilde being calmed by a harassed-looking Madame Giry. Agathe Giry was the lady who came to came to cook on alternate days and cleaned the house on weekends for a generous fee. She was a practical, no-nonsense forty-something widow, lightly tanned and surprisingly lithe, as if she had been a dancer once – efficient, fast-moving and possessing a dry sense of humour that could turn the corners of her small mouth into a quirky smile. Now, however, that mouth was tight at the corners and her jaw square and hard.

"Mme Giry…Mattie?" Christine quaked.

The older woman turned to her. "Your father, child…"

At these words the basket dropped from her cold fingers, shiny black berries scattering over the pebbled pathway.

"No!"

"Don't panic, child, he merely – no, you don't understand. He is not dead, only missing…."

"Missing?"

"We received no news – except – "

"Mam, what do you mean by 'missing'?"

Agathe laid a hand on Matilde's shoulder. "Show her the note, Matilde."

The girl shook her head and unburied her hand from beneath her skirt; with unnecessary force Christine snatched the crumpled piece of paper from her sister's fingers.

In an eloquent hand the message was written:

_Dear Mlles. Klimt,_

_I regret to inform you that your father has committed the grave error of trespassing onto my grounds. My position as inhabitant of this abode is tenuous enough without the added threat of M. Arnaud leaking information to the local villagers. I have therefore no choice but to detain him in the confines of my dwelling. He begs you not to risk your lives for the sake of rescuing him, having been witness to the extent of my hostility. It is best to leave your father where he is; certainly I will not show another intruder the same mercy. Rest assured I will provide for him more than adequately: your father is in safe hands._

_I remain,_

The Phantom of Candlemere 

"The Phantom of Candlemere?" Christine repeated numbly.

"What must we do, Mam – oh, what must we do!" Matilde wrung her hands fiercely, as if all her nervous energies were about to burst forth.

Agathe took the twisting hands in hers. "I'll tell you what we'll do – we'll get some hot tea inside us and work out a plan. Come, Christine – " she ushered them inside.

At the doorway Christine halted. "Where's Meg?"

"In her room," Matilde replied in a subdued voice.

Apparently Marguerite was close to a nervous breakdown; after hot tea and some of Giry's famous herb chicken soup she was a little better, but not much. Of all the sisters, Meg had always been the most attached to Father, and he in turn spoiled and petted her quite a bit more than he meant to. Matilde was his "proud young lady, my belle of the ball"; Christine was his "bookish little wildflower", but it was Meg whom he treated still as a child; for indeed she had a child-like beauty that unwittingly seduced young men by the dozen. He called her ma cherie, ma belle petite, and would go to great lengths to please her. But Meg was at heart a simple girl, and all the excessive doting and pretty dresses had not turned her into an insufferable brat.

As Christine stared across the table at her siblings, she suddenly wanted to slap them. How could they sit there so helplessly while their father was at the mercy of a reclusive madman? She knew she was being irrational, but at that moment fear and anger overwhelmed her judgment. Without warning she rose and walked to her bedroom, ignoring the sound of Giry and her sisters calling her name.

The pale light of the waxing moon cradled her gently in a way she had never known. The girls did not miss their mother very much, except perhaps for Matilde, who was just old enough to have had a vague recollection of a laughing blonde woman in her memory, a woman who would pick her up and tell her stories, none of which she could remember. Meg was a small baby then and Christine had not been conceived. But now the youngest stood at her window, eyes so weary and dry with tears that would not come, while her blood ran restless with desperate worry even as most of her muscles longed for sleep. She remained in a glazed-eyed slump, seeing nothing, until finally unconsciousness crept up on her, and the last thing she thought she saw was the moon smiling at her with her mother's eyes, promising to keep her safe while she slept.


	3. disclaimer interruption sorry

Disclaimer Interruption…

Sorry, I'm new at this. Disclaimers are supposed to be posted at the start of the chapter, but since they weren't, here it is:

I own Monsieur Klimt, Matilde, Marguerite and Christine's horse. Everything else belongs to the respective authors of each books and various film or literary incarnations of the ever-beloved Erik.

So there! Please review. Thank you all so much!


	4. Memoirs of a Beast

Blessings to you...my first reviewers, I cannot thank you enough. jtbwriter, Kathy L, moderndaybattosai, Faust, Dernhelm & Angel of Music. DernH, I like what you said about disney's Gaston - and try as i might, I can't imagine Raoul in his role anyway! (gaakk - choke) Composing Erik-notes are never easy, dear Angel, but your compliments make it worth. Better things to come in following chaps! Chapter 3 Memoirs of a Beast 

Not that the grass- O! may it thrive!

On my grave is growing or grown-

But that, while I am dead yet alive

I cannot be, lady, alone.

Oh, how beautiful Candlemere looked tonight.

They did not call it the 'Lake of Candles' for nothing. When the morning and evening sunlight hit the water, the unusual clarity of the lake caught the rays in such a way that they were split into individual globules of light that 'floated' on the rippled surface like so many candles. How wonderful, that an ordinary lake could turn into a glittering feast for the eyes, so vivid it was almost alive.

Beautiful things comforted the Phantom, as long as they could not speak or see. If they had eyes they could look with disgust and pity upon his visage; if they had eyes they could whisper cruel or sympathetic words behind his back. They were like the mirrors around the castle which he had covered or broken long ago, after the repeated sight of his deformity threatened to drive him mad. In addition he wore a ghostly mask that covered all but his mouth and jaw, which were perfectly well-formed and might even be considered handsome.

Not, of course, that his mother had noticed these small redeeming features.

The Phantom had known and felt much hatred in his life, and the first person he remembered hating was the person he loved the most: the cursed woman who had bore him like a stain onto the face of the earth. The taunts of the vulgar village boys he could tolerate. The repulsion of people around him was something he got used to, had come to expect from the moment he realized he was different. But if only _she _had loved him! – how things might have been so different! He recalled how the light from her beautiful face was extinguished when he walked into the room. She had never hit him or physically abused him – the look on her alabaster face was enough. And not once had she let him near her: not at the library where she spent hours perusing their extensive book collection, not even at the dinner table, where she averted her eyes if he dared pass her a dish. And he would have done anything to please her!

He had grown up surrounded by bourgeois splendour, in a house with a Venetian palazzo and lofty French windows and nameless servants, none of whom he ever came to like. He resented their monotonous subservience, and the fear of his ugliness that showed in flashes on their mousy faces in spite of this. Perhaps he was harsh to them sometimes; he kept a distance from everybody and must have seemed a coldly independent, imperious child. The horrid lumps on his face, which had started out as mild scars when he was first born, grew rapidly worse through his early years. By the time he was a thirteen-year-old lad Mother could no longer repress her disgust. On occasion when she did turn to face him, her eyes were filled with a kind of sad disappointment which was worse than hate itself.

He guessed she had another reason for her loathing: the fact that he would be her only child. Her womb was rendered infertile after her first birth: he must be part of that curse. The child born under an evil star who should never have come into this world.

One night when he was feeling particularly vengeful, he clawed demonically at the awful growths that had marked him as the worst of outcasts, a diseased leper. At least a leper might eventually die of his sickness, but _he_ was doomed to live like this for the rest of his life. The adult years that lay ahead seemed to stretch hopelessly into the horizon. Weeping salty tears that stung and mixed with the blood, he looked down at his crimson-lined fingernails and began to laugh – a black sort of laughter that drew back his lips into a gargoyle's grin. Possibly he had never looked more gruesome than at that moment. The wounds on his injured face healed soon enough, but the wounds on his young confused soul never closed.

After his mother died his inner turmoil did not lessen; without someone to direct his hate at, he felt strangely empty. It was a terrible realization, that all the resentment he thought he felt for her was really aimed at himself. In the end he was the only one left. The only one to blame.

As he cried bitter tears that left a strange taste in his mouth, an overwhelming repulsion at this show of weakness overcame him. Without a word to the people at the funeral gathering, he ran up to the lofty attic of the manor where the family heirlooms were stored. On one of the walls hung an arrangement of marvelously crafted satin domino masks, each worth a small fortune. Mother had worn one once long ago at a party: a black-and-gold sequined affair adorned with glossy raven feathers; she had looked so lovely and mysterious that night as she waltzed in the arms of numerous men. There was also a velvet deep purple one with silver studs all over it like stars, and a red-and-black harlequin. His hand reached for the last one: the plainest, a traditional white domino with, fittingly enough, a black teardrop beneath one eyehole. Like a parody of tragedy. As the mask slipped over his face, he felt a sense of relief. Now his tears were hidden, and more importantly, his face.

"If I could wear a mask all the time," he whispered to the attic walls, "I can hide from the world."



Bravure was tired; Christine could feel it in the magnificent stallion's sleek muscles that had carried her faithfully for many miles. She herself was wracked with exhaustion; the rations of bread and dried meat had not yet run out, but she was too fatigued to eat very much. Her feet were slowly going numb with cold. Her gloved hands seemed naked in the biting chill; they would not be able to grip the reins much longer.

She was learnt enough to know that if she fell asleep now, she would not wake up. But that knowledge perversely made the comforting warm blackness of slumber all the more tempting. It was creeping up on her relentlessly, eating away at the corners of her consciousness. _So this is what it feels like to die,_ she thought as she drifted off…

A chilling howl saved her life: she jerked awake. Wolves! There were wolves in this forest! She gasped sharply, and the icy air cut through her lungs. Her boots nudged Bravure's flank and they rode with a renewed burst of speed. As the woods passed in a grey blur around her, the branches whacked at her face and shoulders, but Christine did not feel them. The adrenaline in her veins pushed her beyond her limits and she held the reins tightly, holding on, just holding on…

The clearing loomed ahead like an angel of mercy, and as they burst through the last of the darkness, the seventeen-year-old hugged her steed's neck and offered up a prayer of thanks, followed by another prayer: that her father still be alive.

A/N Btw, are the italics and bolds appearing on your screens? Cause they sure aren't on mine, even though I loaded it in the correct format. ah well.. 


	5. Point of No Return

Poetry at start of chapter is not mine. Belongs to a certain Mr Poe. :) Oh, I must tell you that as my college sem break ends this week, chapter postings may be sporadic when I am being severely tormented by my sadistic lecturers. (Read: bombed by homework - aaaaghhh) Mucho gracias for your understanding. Chapter 4 The Point of No Return 

So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,

"Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door-

Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;-

This it is, and nothing more."

The vast interior of the castle was a marriage of austere, elongated gothic columns and fanciful eighteenth-century scrollwork, although this was not immediately apparent in the garb of night. Overlooking the sprawling entrance before the sweeping grand marble staircase, a huge ornate chandelier hung from the frescoed ceiling. Designed by a master craftsman, every crystal was cut to perfection so that when the magnificent structure was lit up, the candle-fire was refracted into a million dazzling rays, and the chandelier would glitter in prismatic splendour.

If it had a story to tell, no doubt the tale would be a compelling one; but the vibrant masterpiece was now a dusty, ancient crone, its golden curlicues coated with a thick layer of grime. And any form of light, natural or conceived, had long since given up hope of restoring life to the dilapidated giant.

Candlemere Castle was quiet tonight, as always; but within its rank, dormant soul, something stirred. It was as if the castle sensed the approaching of new life, agitation, energy. Perhaps Arnaud had left his imprint on its hollow halls. Perhaps the Phantom was exceptionally restless tonight. It is said that a house takes on the spirit of its inhabitants. Tonight there was a potency in the air, an inaudible tremor, a tension. The castle was portent with the premonition of events to come.

In one of its lofty towers, the soft notes of an organ filled the silence…

…as Bravure came to a halt before the towering iron gate. In the sky, the first rays of dawn was preceded by a sickly greyish light that illuminated little. At the sight of the forbidding castle behind the fences, Christine shivered with trepidation and anticipation. She had come so far from a comforting familiar home, and now she would take one more step into the unknown.

"Stay here, Bravure," she whispered in the horse's ear. His gold-flecked brown eyes spoke of worry at being left alone – but she had no choice. A tentative hand pushed at one of the gates, and it swung open with a soft creak. Wildly her mind beat against her foolhardy actions, yet her soul obeyed the relentless moving of her feet, one in front of the other, nearer and nearer to the doors of the castle. Then she heard music.

_I am hallucinating,_ she thought calmly. _The exhaustion is finally getting to me._ And so she walked half in a dream into the maw of the beast.

At about the same time, Arnaud Klimt awoke in his prison.

The passionate chords reverberated through the walls of Candlemere Castle, at once beautiful and morbid, but dropping once in a while into a darkly seductive melody the music spoke of torture and loss and abandonment, it spoke of pain. It spoke of fear.

Like a sprawling blind spider it unwittingly drew in its prey in the form of a forlorn little figure, weary to death and standing at the entrance with nothing but the clothes on her back.

The castle knew, and it alerted him.

Like a great cat the Phantom unwound himself from the organ bench and muttered foul threats under his breath. Perhaps he should just kill this one. Like squashing a fly – a second was all it would take.

He was halfway down the staircase when she looked up – straight into his piercing golden eyes.

This is what he saw: a bedraggled, slightly grubby figure wearing a rumpled dress of uncertain colour and a shawl which had fallen off the head to reveal dark wavy hair, tangled and slightly damp. The face had a pale, drawn look to it coloured only by pink scratches and two or three scabbing cuts, a particularly long one on her right cheekbone. She was also shivering without realizing it. All in all she looked fit to be swallowed by the floor.

The Phantom was caught off balance by the girl's obvious vulnerability and her obliviousness to his menacing presence. All he could think of asking was:

"What do you want, girl?"

The petite creature squared her shoulders. "I am seeking my father. Monsieur Arnaud Klimt.

"There is no such person." Ah, so this was one of his daughters!

"This _is _the residence known as Candlemere Castle, no?" When she received no reply, she pushed on: "I received word that my father is being detained within your abode." She squinted into the shadow, trying to make out his features. "Are you the only inhabitant here?"

How straightforward she was! And so clear-spoken: no stammering, no hesitation. This girl was either mad or willing to die for her father.

He stepped closer, and now she could see he wore a mask. "Who wants to know?"

"Nobody, sir, only I'd appreciate it if – "

"You would appreciate it?" he thundered, gaining a small satisfaction in making her jump. "Well, _I_ would appreciate it if you would refrain from dirtying the place further with your intrusive presence! I believe I stated in my note that trespassers would _not_ be shown mercy!"

"So it _was_ you who wrote the letter!"

"Yes, mademoiselle; it is indeed I, the Phantom of Candlemere!" Thrusting his face inches from hers, he ripped off his mask.

All her coldness and bravura melted away at the sight of his ghastly visage, the collapsed forehead, the pale drooping lumps that gave the impression of hot wax dripping off a skull. And in the two deep black sockets, eyes like glowing embers leered at her.

She drew back involuntarily, jerkily. He moved in, grabbed her arm as one deformed cheekbone brushed against her face. A sound of unadulterated terror escaped her throat; she gave in finally, tired of fighting. All the built-up courage was threatening to leave her defenseless, leave her alone with this beast. Her knees gave way.

"What – you refuse to fight me? You've shown more spine than your old man, girl; I congratulate you!" He let her go, and she sunk to the floor.

As he gazed upon the girl, something in her downtrodden posture stirred a flash of pity. It was not one of his preferred emotions; pity for him often led to revulsion rather than compassion. Yet his aversion to her was not one of loathing. It was something else, something unnamable. The Phantom was confused. When he looked at her again, he noticed she had begun shivering more violently, and the eyes had sunk back into their half-dazed fearlessness. Just before she lost consciousness, her gaze turned up to meet his once more.


	6. Labyrinth

Once again, thank you for the reviews... Faust: (abt the comment on Erik's deformity) I personally thought Gerry's little scar in the movie looked more like a bad rash. Don't get me wrong, I love the film, very artistic; but that's what you get - Hollywood glossing up things... I used Gerry's lips for this story though, because they're so expressive :) jtbwriter: He does care about being loved, he just doesn't know it yet. This guy is full of fear and resentment, he'll have to learn to get over that. Tink20: thanks, I hope you continue enjoying the story. On with the chap! 

**Chapter 5**

**Labyrinth**

Arnaud whipped around at the sound of the bolt being drawn. The door opened silently.

"You wished to be set free?" grunted the voice of the beast.

Arnaud did not know what to say, but he may as well have been tongueless for the way he was dragged out into the cold corridors.

"I have found a new prisoner. You may return to whence you came." A hand gripped him by the arm and led the way.

"New prisoner? Who?" Even as he asked the question he feared the answer.

"Need you ask?"

He gasped. "Christine! No!"

"Your daughter is safe with me, monsieur, I suggest you leave while you can!" Before he knew it, Arnaud was pushed down the grand stairs and out the massive oak doors. It was a fine golden dawn outside, but Arnaud had never felt colder.

"What – what will you do with her, sir?"

The doors slammed.

"At least let me say goodbye to her!" But the beast was gone: silence swallowed his words. For a long time he stood in the cold light of dawn staring up at the gate that had shut him out of his daughter's life forever. Beside him, Bravure whinnied desolately.



Christine's limbs felt heavy, drunken. She wondered why she was warm, but her mind felt like it had been stuffed with cotton and could not answer. But the subtle warmth of sunshine on her face told her that she was wakening.

Was she back in the cottage? Surely that tinkling was Mme Giry in the kitchen. It would be time for breakfast right about now. Almost out of habit, her stomach tingled with the first ramblings of hunger.

Then she opened her eyes, and the world was upside-down.

This was not her quilt. This was a luxurious silk maroon thing, thickly padded and silver-embroidered. The bed sheets were ivory white and satiny. Further surprises lay in store: the room was painted in shades of white and golden brown, with a dresser and vanity mirror opposite the bed framed in carved woodwork, the floral motifs flowing with a serpentine grace. The long stained windows, open just a crack to admit a few rays of light, cast green diamond-shaped flecks on the floor. As yesterday's events came tumbling back into memory, she wondered that her travel-stained clothes had not marred the expensive materials –

Then she looked down and gaped. Her clothes were missing! All, that is, except the soft cotton chemise she wore under all her dresses. Had a servant removed the grubby clothing? Or had –

"How _dare_ he!" she raged.

Kicking off the quilt, the girl stormed to the door and threw it open. Nothing stopped her: the entire castle seemed quite dead.

Her anger abated somewhat by the silence of the corridors, she wandered down a narrow flight of stairs that led into a wider series of halls. Her ears caught a snatch of tinny sounds coming from one of the chambers. Then she entered and the sounds died.

It was a dining room, sprawling like most of the rooms in the castle, but made cosy by the flames that leapt in the brick-and-stone fireplace and the warm red of the carpet. It was not her imagination; someone had been here just shortly before she came. There was even food on the table, steaming porridge and stew and some sliced baguette. The table was laid for one. For her? What was she – prisoner or honoured guest? This was becoming more and more curious by the minute.

Without meaning to, Christine inhaled the steam from the hot food, and saliva flooded her mouth. She plonked down onto the chair, grabbed a spoon and shoved mouthfuls of porridge down her throat. The food burned her throat but she was past caring. A slice of baguette went diving into the gravy and came out dripping, her pearly teeth tearing it in half in a most unladylike manner. The juices permeating the bread thrilled her palate to no end: the gravy was thick and divinely sweet from the essence of meat and herbs. Perhaps it was her sharp hunger that made ambrosia of common food, but the very sensation of good hot things filling her stomach was heaven. She was chomping noisily on a tender chunk of pork when a shadow in the corner moved.

"I see you are enjoying your meal."

She choked on the half-chewed meat and spat it out into the napkin nearby. The spoon she was holding clattered onto the plate. Her appetite had gone as quickly as it had come.

"Continue with your meal, mademoiselle; I would not disturb your repast."

She stared at him coldly. "Where is my father?"

"Sent home on your steed. I trust it is a steady animal."

"Then I wish for the same, if it is not too much trouble."

He moved closer to the table, and she saw that he was clothed most civilly in a fitting dark green coat, starched shirt and cravat – unlike herself, clothed in only her underthings. In addition, his gentlemanly demeanour contrasted oddly with the raging menace with which he had first greeted her.

"Stay back, monsieur. Unless you wish to diminish my appetite forever."

"What am I so unappealing even with my monstrous face hidden?" He gestured to the white mask.

"It is not your physical flaws, monsieur, but your ugly deeds which disgust me." She stood.

"Please, sit."

"To hell with you."

"What makes you utter such condemning words? I offer you a bed, a roof over your head, hot food – and for these you spit in my face?"

"You outraged my modesty."

He crossed his arms. "How so?"

"Unless a servant of yours pulled my clothes from my unconscious body, I can only assume you committed the act yourself…and God knows what advantages you might have took of me then."

"I had no choice: you would have caught pneumonia from your damp dress."

"What do you care for my life?"

"More than you thought, evidently. Although I a beginning to think that my kindness was wasted on a scratching, hissing creature incapable of gratitude," he growled.

"You will have no gratitude from _me_, sir. And kindly keep your foul hands from my flesh!" For he had taken two large steps forward. She could feel the heat from his wide frame.

"I have made no attempt on your 'flesh', girl; I assure you, you are quite unravished! But if you wish to provoke me into doing it - !" He loomed over her like a great dark shadow.

Fear and defiance battled in her wide-eyed glare. Then she did something unexpected – she slapped him.

Hard. Almost enough to knock the mask from his face. His amber eyes were filled with shock.

Taking advantage of his surprise, she drove her knee into his stomach and ran madly for the two huge doors beyond which lay her freedom.

She heard his furious shouts as he cursed her in various colourful descriptions. Terror tore the walls of her pounding heart into ragged strips. She kept running, but each footstep took her deeper into the winding lightless corridors. And now she was lost.

Christine had read the Greek legend of Theseus and the minotaur. Trapped in a labyrinth with no way out save to confront the murderous beast. But she had no weapon, and instead of Theseus she would be just another maiden youth chosen to be sacrifice to the minotaur's bloodlust.

It was dark. Very dark. And silent save for the beating of her racing pulse…

Then his hand clamped around her neck.

"You are mad, child!" Another hand pinned both arms to her side. "Would you rather die out there than be within my presence? Should I leave your tender pink flesh for the wolves…Christine?"

She was stunned. "You know my name."

"Thanks to your dear father. Perhaps I should write the Klimt family another note, this time assuring them that you are unharmed. What do you think?"

The sheer proximity of his presence, his chest pressed against her back…it was at once frightening and intoxicating. It took away all capacity for thought, only emotion, primal and mindless. His overpowering scent, so subtle from a distance, pervaded Christine's senses and threatened to leave her swooning.

His hand dropped from her throat, and she inhaled for air, once again drawing in the smell of musk and sweat. A disconnected thought of how different it was from Raoul's cologne struck her. The Phantom let her go and she reeled backwards.

From one of his coat pockets he produced a candlestick and lit it. An orange glow illuminated the stretch of darkness. "Shall I leave you to find your own way back?"

He held out an arm in a disarmingly polite fashion; she knew he was mocking her and refused to take the bait. "Lead the way, sir." Stiffly, head held high, she followed in his footsteps.

At the door of her bedchamber, she walked coolly past him: he bowed with a curt nod of his head. Two can play at this game, she thought, and curtsied primly.

Before he left her, she added, "Since I will be obliged to address you from time to time, I would like to request your name."

If he was surprised, he did not show it save for a slight pause. "You may call me Erik."

"Thank you, Monsieur Erik." There – she had the last word in.

"You're welcome. And may I suggest a bath? I've smelt cleaner street rats."

"Why -! How dare y -!" But he had closed the door.


	7. A Tempest Over Breakfast

May not have time tomorrow, so I'll just post this today along with chap 5. (Actually I have the story in Word format up to chap 8, but I haven't edited it yet... :-D) And the italics are still behaving sporadically. Don't mind them. Chapter 6 A Tempest Over Breakfast 

And, pride, what have I now with thee?

Another brow may even inherit

The venom thou hast pour'd on me

Be still, my spirit!

Erik cleared away the last sheet of paper, placing it on a thick stack of music compositions written in his elegant hand, and made sure that the edges were exactly aligned. He weighed down the papers with a jade inkstand, then proceeded to adjust the organ bench at an angle parallel to the large black mahogany instrument. Growling irritably, he pounced on a dusty spot marring the shiny surface and wiped it with his sleeve. The organ was perhaps the most painstakingly well-preserved object in the entire castle.

His demeanour towards his surroundings fluctuated from total disregard – during which the place would fall into shambles without his blinking an eye – to an unreasonable obsession with the placement of things. A piddling detail like the upturned corner of a carpet could send him into a minor frenzy. As a result, the rooms in Candlemere Castle were either a veritable nesting ground for dusty heaps of junk and dilapidated furniture, or fastidiously clean and polished, the dining chamber being one example. If you were to take a walk through you would notice that everything, from tables to candle stands, were arranged an a ninety-degree angle from each other and smaller objects like vases and cutlery were placed with an even spacing in between. This obsession with neatness usually overtook him when he was feeling restless. Tonight was one example. He predicted that he would not be sleeping a wink till dawn the next day (although this in itself was not uncommon). And all because of one idiotically determined wild-eyed woman-child who met his demonic ugliness not with terror, but with sheer impertinence! Why had he not killed her yet? Why had he sheltered her, not let her come to her own doom when she tried to escape? The incident reminded him of another hapless trespasser, a few years ago, who had inadvertently trapped himself within the winding passageways of the castle. With a sadistic smile Erik had listened to the man's cries of horror, every now and then making an appearance so as to treat the already terrified fellow to glimpses of his unmasked face. After a long while the screams turned to whimpers, and then to mutterings of a man driven mad. The process took about a day and a half. When he had been reduced to a mumbling shivering lump, Erik came with a noose in hand, looking like merciful Death, and brought a short sweet reprieve to the intruder's suffering.

But not this girl. Not Christine. For some reason the more she drove him up the wall, the less he was inclined to destroy her. The beastly sadist in him liked his victims moaning and begging for their lives. Which only puzzled him as to why he had not finished Arnaud Klimt. In fact if he had stood still for a moment to analyze his muddled emotions, he would have realized that he was drawn to her impertinence and not repulsed by it. That her defiance mirrored his own antagonistic relationship with the world around him. But the Phantom of Candlemere was not one to think standing still.

Sighing with frustration, he removed the inkstand and started rearranging papers for the tenth time.

Christine stood freshly bathed in front of the open wardrobe next morning with a mixture of loathing and resignation. Her old clothes were nowhere to be found, and unless she wanted to wander about wearing the bed sheets, she would have to pick _something _from this ridiculous variety of apparel.

Her practical sensibilities called it ridiculous because the clothes looked like they belong to a slave of fashion. Gold-embroidered empire waists, flounces and frills and voluminous taffeta skirts, heavy velvets that required stiff pettocoats to hold them up. No doubt they were very pretty and boasted fine workmanship, but they would look ludicrous on her petite frame and without the make-up and pearls. As she withdrew a fairly unembellished burgundy satin from the assortment, the skirts parted to reveal a lovely white muslin patterned with small blue flowers and a dainty waist, the bodice just low-cut enough to accentuate the curves of the shoulder and a hint of cleavage.

Meg would have loved it.

The vivid colours blurred before her eyes as thoughts of her family filled her head. Dear Meg and Mattie, would she ever see them again? Would they remember to pluck roses for Father, to fill the vase on his desk, the one beside the portrait of Mother? Did Raoul know what had happened to her? Would he think of her when he passed that old magnolia tree and the orchard where they had spent their childhood days? Such a good friend, a good man. Perhaps he would marry one of her sisters someday. She did not know. She would never know.

Christine's hands were trembling around the gown she held. All the grief came tumbling out, and she crumbled to her knees and crouched in front of the closet, crying and crying till she couldn't breathe.

As the last of the tears dried on her cheeks, a strain of music tickled her ears. Heavenly music, played by fingers so sensitive she imagined them stroking the keys like a lover's body. Stroking her body. She shook her head to clear that last thought. But the sweet sad melody stayed with her and echoed in her soul. Christine closed her eyes, let the music calm her. Make me strong, she prayed. Let me face another day with dignity. Let me face it like my father's daughter.

As she entered the dining room, he watched her from the balcony above. How different this lady was from the wretched trembling girl he had first seen! Here was a rosy sweet-lipped creature whose complexion was heightened dramatically by the deep burgundy of her dress. A white 'V' ran down the centre of the bodice, daintily scalloped with soft lace, to further the illusion of an hourglass figure. Her face was framed by tumbling waves the colour of dark chocolate. And the way she carried herself! It stopped at the threshold of haughtiness, that deliberate queenly grace that almost masked her uncertainty.

This time she did not draw back when he made himself seen. After calmly finishing her breakfast the first words she spoke were:

"I have a few requests, monsieur Erik."

He raised a sardonic eyebrow, although she could not see this behind the mask. "Name them."

"First, I would be most grateful if my closet was stocked with something more practical than those flounced and feathered things currently inhabiting it. You cannot expect me to prance about your abode dressed like a courtier, can you?"

He shrugged languidly. "You will have to excuse me, my dear; I have not had time to scurry down to the nearest shop to purchase dresses for a stranger. Furthermore I have no inkling as to what women like: I have never spent much time around any, and those 'flounced and feathered things' were the only feminine garments available." His lips pulled back in a grin that was more like a grimace. She thought he was going to say something further, but he stopped.

"Secondly, if it's not too much trouble I would like to be equipped with pen and paper, or books of you have them, something to occupy myself with."

His glinting golden eyes pierced hers. "You know, Christine, I find you most amusing. You are my prisoner, and yet you act like my honoured guest! In what _other_ ways am I required to _serve_ you, mademoiselle?"

"I am not requesting much, _sir_, but you must realize that even a prisoner has human feelings and human needs. Or am I your pretty plaything, to be kept at your discretion for your petty amusement?" Her voice was heated.

"And what if you are!" He knocked a candelabra aside: it fell to the floor with a thunderous _clang._ "My dear sweet girl, I think you fail to realize what a precarious position you are in! Gentle though I may seem at times, I have killed people younger and braver than you!"

This was not completely true. Face-to-face with his monstrous presence, this wilful girl of all persons was the first to look at the mask of death without flinching.

"And yet you have not killed me. What is it that stops you?" She actually moved in on him, ignoring the fact that he could push her down as easily as the candle stand. "Oh, I know how you are. You would rather have your vctims beg you for mercy! You are like a cat that plays with its food before devouring it. Well begging your _pardon_, monsieur, but you will have no such entertainment from me!"

He drew up to his full height, lips drawn back over his teeth, and now he looked truly menacing. "You underestimate me, Christine," he hissed.

"Oh, I'm sure I do." Her hands balled into fists. "What am I to you, Erik? A slave? A trophy? Please, tell me so I will know what to expect of my _master!"_

This parody of subservience only incensed him further. "Women!" he raged, whirling around so his tall back faced her. "Coy, deceitful, pretentious little creatures they are. No good ever came of trying to please them!"

"Is that so?" she challenged quietly. "How many women have you known in your life, Erik?"

Deadly quiet ruled the chamber for a long moment. Then in a completely different tone she asked: "Was it you who was playing the organ?"

He did not answer.

"When I first came to the castle," she whispered almost dreamily, I heard the most heavenly music. So unearthly, I knew the person behind it could be no ordinary musician."

He smiled humourlessly. "And your romantic sensibilities must have led you to expect an angel. Instead you found a demon."

"No," she said, "I found a Phantom."

Just before she exited the room, he muttered, "There is a library on the far right of the second floor. So you needn't pester me with your complaints of boredom."

A/N Don't you love fiesty Christines? I do! Review and thou shalt be rewarded. 


	8. The Pride Before the Fall

OK to my reviewers...you are all a lovely bunch! Where do they make people like you:) Kates: Gaaah! Overload of blushing from flattery can lead to fatal dizziness. Ooh, I found a new friend in you. Will check out the message board site when I have time. Alright, I have to warn you that following updates will be erratic (most likely meaning slow), and I beg your forgiveness in advance. Hey, I'm just your average sturgglin' college student. :) 

**Chapter 8**

**The Pride Before the Fall** When the hours flew brightly by, And not a cloud obscured the sky, My soul, lest it should truant be, Thy grace did guide to thine and thee

Christine stared incredulously at the new contents of her wardrobe.

Gone were the corsets and petticoats and taffeta skirts. In its place was an array of clothing that might have belonged to a young man – cotton and silk shirts, with ruffled and plain collars; outer vests lined with satin or velvet, slim-fitting pants, a few scarves and a pair of soft leather gloves. The coats were especially well-cut but simple, unadorned.

She found herself pouting uncharacteristically. Was this Erik's way of humiliating her? Or of leaving her with an ultimatum – wear this or the same dress for the rest of the year? Of course, she could always go back to padding about in her chemise…but winter was coming soon, and the castle could get draughty.

Christine smiled grimly, determinedly. She would play this game if he wanted her to. And she would win.

After all, it was just the two of them…

She did not see him at breakfast today. But tucked under her napkin was a scrap of paper with the message: _At the stables._

It took her some time to find the place, for the grounds were huge. He did not hear her coming at first, and what she saw made her stop: for she had never seen him like this before.

Erik stood facing a tall jet-black steed, its glossy mane fluttering as it gave a satisfied whinny. Long graceful hands – he had a craftsman's fingers, she saw that now – stroked the horse's muzzle as he hummed in a soft, low voice the refrain of a song she had heard before. The there was his face: there was none of the usual tension in the jaw, only a gentle tilt to his mouth that was almost a smile. And his eyes, his strange beautiful eyes were wide and devoid of ire or mockery. Almost like a child's eyes.

Then he saw her, and for the briefest of moments an unidentifiable emotion crossed his masked face – defensive anger, perhaps, as if she had caught him naked. Then he was calm again.

"Christine." He smiled, ever the gentleman. "What are you doing here?"

She frowned. "I – you told me to –"

"Told you to what?"

Christine cursed herself for falling for this latest insult. The note had not actually been an invitation, had it? It had merely informed her of his whereabouts. And now it appeared as if _she_ was approaching _him_ for company_. Nice trap, Monsieur le Fantome!_ she fumed.

'Well, since you are appropriately attired, I suppose you would like a ride." She felt him studying her from head to toe. "You look good. I was afraid the cut might not suit you."

Her chin stiffened. "Thank you, but I'll decline the offer."

"I never 'offered' anything, mademoiselle. But I am perfectly willing to let you mount one of the horses, since you have taken the trouble to be here."

His civil words grated on her nerves. She knew how this was making her look: here he was, being nothing if not genteel and obliging, and she was the one who sounded like – what had he called her before? A 'hissing creature incapable of gratitude' who sounded more like a common wench in a lady's guise!

"I am most touched by your kindness, Erik, including your consideration in informing me of your precise location so I would not worry myself to death –" she paused to let the sarcasm sink in – "as to where you had disappeared off to. But really, next time you need not take such measures." She turned and made to go off.

He shrugged. "Suit yourself."

She looked back, surprised by his giving up so easily. It was then that she saw the beautiful mare that had emerged beside the black horse.

"Lovely, isn't she?"

Christine nodded grudgingly. The animal moved so gracefully it made her think of the otherworldly beasts owned by faerie folk she had read about in stories, its great teardrop-shaped eyes rolling languidly from Erik to her. The pelt was almost an exact match for the soft grey velvet coat she was wearing. Its mane was a lighter grey, almost white.

"What is her name?"

"Sylvie. She's yours if you want her."

She could not help but feel suspicious. "Why are you being so nice to me?"

"You do not like it? I can always be the opposite, if you wish it."

She scrutinized his body language for that simmering fierceness that always lurked just below the calm surface…but there was none. Being around horses evidently put him in a congenial mood.

"I will ride with you, Erik, if you insist." But her big heart already belonged to the wonderful silver-grey animal.

"Good. I hope you are a competent rider."

She raised her chin jauntily. "I am more than competent, monsieur, as you will find out." Then on a boyish impulse she nudged Sylvie's flank and sped off without warning. And for the first time, a small laugh escaped her lips.

A long, confused sigh came from the bottom of his soul as he rode to catch up with her. When he first laid eyes on her today, the sight of this girl strangely outfitted in men's clothes had quickened his pulse, much to his vexation. Her shapely athletic legs wrapped in those fitting white breeches were nothing short of titillating, while the skilfully tailored coat tapered a little at the waist to subtly highlight a feminine figure in an entirely different way from a corset. Then there was that defiant look in her eyes that he had come to – dare he think it – look forward to.

In his perpetual isolation as a youth, Erik had developed a superiority complex that further alienated him from his peers. He saw most people as silly, superficial and weak, afraid of what they could not name, and determined to keep up a pretentious veneer. He, a book-lover, knew people who read literature simply for the sake of appearing to love it. Hypocritical snobs! In surrounding themselves with the pretty and the orthodox they had forgotten how to truly love beauty, to cherish the deeper qualities of things, to love the soul of their accumulated treasures as well as the gilded surface. If he was destined to be alone and apart from such petty creatures, so be it; Erik had convinced himself that he had no need for their company. But for the first time he saw in one extraordinary woman a spirit that was courageous and keen and not easily bent; who lived with an unquenchable passion and who, he was sure, had the ability to love deeply and fiercely.

But the question he was afraid to ask was: could even a heart such as hers have the ability to love…him?

_You will love me, for love is blind. _He had heard that line in a play once uttered by a man who was determined to ensnare his lady's affections, but in his own blindness had crossed the boundary into unending obsession and driven her away with his madness. Ws he doomed to be that man? But no – he was not seeking anyone's affection. Let her come to him, if she was fool enough to be willing prey to a human who was half man and half beast…

The distance between them jolted him out of his reverie: her slim figure was rapidly disappearing into the horizon. "Christine!" he called. Damn that infuriating girl! She had him scurrying after her like a handmaid. Well, he would teach her a hard lesson, she could be sure about that!

The sloping expanse of meadow ended abruptly in a cliff that overlooked a scenic view of the river. "Christine, you silly girl, can you hear me!"

"What?" Her voice came from far away. Over the curve that signalled the beginning of the downhill descent, her wavy brunette head was just visible.

"Slow down!"

"Why, can't you catch up?"

"I said SLOW DOWN!"

"Alright, alrigh –" Her words were cut off by a short sharp cry.

"CHRISTINE!"

He heard the slide of hooves on rubble and loose stones skittering over the edge. When he reached her side she was, mercifully, still astride Sylvie; but the mare was losing control. Her wind-whipped face was tense with fear.

"Christine!" He reached out. "Grab my hand."

"I can't reach – you're too far away!"

"If I come any closer I'll start sliding as well. Damn it, take my hand!"

"But…Sylvie –"

"LISTEN to me, God damn it!"

Gritting her teeth, Christine lunged out for him, but the movement caused Sylvie to lose balance and jerk forward. Then the girl slipped off her saddle into the rocky river below.

With a shout Erik rushed his steed forward and used his wide reach to grab her collar. She hooked onto his arm, and he swung her onto his horse – she just barely held on; with all his skill he steered them back onto safe land. Without the burden, Sylvie was able to scramble up away from the cliff's edge.

When they were safely away from danger, Christine heard her own ragged breaths through the pounding of her heart.

Then she found the warm safety of Erik's chest and leaned into it instinctively. The sudden warmth of her body, the softness of her hair, caused a small unfamiliar jolt within. What more confusing emotions would assault him today?

He grabbed her shoulders. "Why," he growled, "do you insist on behaving so stupidly?"

"I'm…I'm sorry."

"You could have killed us both!"

"I know."

"Pretty little show-off you are! Happy now, are you, now that you've won your little race?"

"No. I – I didn't know about the cliff. I apologize."

"And why," he asked in a more subdued tone, "are you not arguing with me like you always do?"

She smiled. "It's hard to argue with someone who has just saved your life."

He snorted softly. "We'll return to the castle."

"No, wait…" She turned around to look up at him. "Take me on a tour of the grounds…please."

"Ah, so this is how she repays her rescuer. By treating him like a manservant!" But he acquiesced. "Get back on Sylvie then."

With a reluctance that surprised her, she did so.


	9. Blessings and Laments

To all my loyal readers: I have been owing you! Thank you for waiting. 

This chap may be a bit slow for some, but it is absolutely necessary. Btw, I hope I spelt the feminine of 'Vicomte' correctly. Correct me if I'm wrong. 

Chapter 9 

**Blessings and Laments**

The star hath ridden high

Thro' many a tempest, but she rode

Beneath thy burning eye.

She stirr'd not- breath'd not- for a voice was there

How solemnly pervading the calm air!

A sound of silence on the startled ear

Which dreamy poets name "the music of the sphere.

It had been a month since Christine's disappearance. Raoul de Chagny stood at the manor window watching the autumn leaves flutter from their branches, each one a different shade of red. Inside him was a desolate place that he kept hidden from the world. Especially from his wife Adeleine, the new Vicomtess de Chagny.

Ever the responsible son, he had let himself be married to this sweet placid-browed woman who was the daughter of Louis Moncharmin, a wealthy patron of the arts who had rescued his family name from the 'disrespectable' reputation his father had sowed by mixing with the most outrageous bohemian poets and painters (as opposed to the elite class of academy-trained artists).

Raoul was filled with a sense that he was just passing through a phase, just waiting for something. A child, perhaps, to carry on the name of de Chagny. After all, that was the purpose of this marriage, was it not? And no loyal son, he told himself sternly, should forsake his duty to his family for his own pleasures. Even as he stood up for his decision, another small part cursed himself for being weak. For not standing up for what he wanted. What, when you thought about it, makes a man? Should a man do the rational thing, the right thing? Or should he stand rock-hard in the face of opposition, even if it brought about the downfall of others?

He shook his head. He would grow to love Adeleine eventually, he knew that. She was generous, compassionate, a devoted wife and would make a wonderful mother. If only she would argue with him more! But ah, that was another person he was thinking of. And at night he still heard her spirited voice in his head.

But Christine was not like him, was he? She was free – as free as anyone he had known could ever be. If she wanted to take off in the middle of the night to some godforsaken place, she could. And she had. A petty creature in him wanted to lick his wounds and feel hurt that she had left her good friend with not a single word, not even a note to say "don't worry." But the nobler side of him overpowered that urge. Whatever Christine did, she must have had a good reason. Though he _would_ worry about his dear close companion! There was no helping that!

"Raoul, what are you thinking of?"

He took Adeleine in his arms. "Only of a lost friend, love." And they embraced, while his restless heart hissed: _betrayer._

"…and I hereby pronounce you husband and wife."

Marguerite bowed once her fair head, adorned with pearls and tiny white blossoms, as she took her husband's hand in hers and looked up at his smiling freshly-shaven face. In the garden where the Klimt sisters used to play as children, Joseph Andre kissed the willowy white-clad figure before him, the same Meg who had grown from a giggling girl into a dignified woman in such a short time. A brief distance away, Matilde stood beside _her_ husband with tears in her eyes. Arnaud laid a hand on his eldest child's shoulder, and both felt deeply what they did not speak: the absence of a daughter and sister. All around them, the leaves of fall rustled softly on the ground as a bittersweet happiness filled their hearts.

As the newlywed couple walked to the house followed by the bride's and groom's families, the minstrel strummed his harp and sang.

_When one rose wilts, _

_Another blooms_

_Where there is light,_

_So dies the gloom;_

_As rivers flow_

_To meet the sea,_

_The water's song_

_It sings with me._

_When darkness falls,_

_Lovers will meet_

'_Neath the night sky:_

_A kiss and sigh_

_To cross my lips_

_With sacred vow,_

_Thine hand I take:_

_To thee I bow._

_And like rivers we_

_Run side by side._

_Till life doth end_

_Thou art my bride._

Even as she smiled at the handsome couple walking hand in hand, the folds around Mme Giry's grey-green eyes were beginning to redden. Arnaud offered her an arm and she took it, leaning her head against his shoulder for just a moment.

"Agathe," he said, his voice strangely tender.

"Yes, Arnaud?"

"I have…been thinking."

"Of what?"

"Many things – the flight of my daughters from their nest, Christine's absence –" he paused. "And I must admit, my growing attraction towards you."

She halted in mid-step. "Arnaud – Monsieur Klimt – I…"

"Please. Arnaud will be fine.

"You know, it is not uncommon for a widowed, middle-aged man to fall for the help."

"_Just_ the help? Agathe, I should think we consider you part of the family by now. You are like a mother to the girls – they love you."

She didn't say anything; he took her hand. "You have mourned your departed husband for too long, Agathe. How I wish to see you laugh like you were happy – truly happy, and let these red eyes –" he wiped away a tear from her cheek – "be the rarest of occurrences."

"I cry today because I wish for Christine to be here," she sniffed, gaze lowered. "She would have been Meg's bridesmaid. Imagine her, dressed in white with a rose in her hair…" Both smiled wistfully at the pretty picture.

"My life," he said finally "is at a crossroads now. Two paths vie for my decision. And I must choose between a safe and happy life with you, dear Agathe, or…another form of happiness, one that can only be gained by risking…."

"Risking? Risking what?" She gripped his hand.

He started to answer, then interrupted himself. "I will tell you later. It is my daughter's wedding day – let other solemn affairs wait."


	10. Whispers of a Lonely Heart

To…

tink20: You have your wish…especially in the still-under-construction Chap 11!

Faust: You want thrills, you got thrills. ;-) Btw, I have read Little Women as well as seen the movie. Jo rocks.

And all other faithful readers, many thanks! And to those who read without reviewing, how dare you! 

Also, Mominator wishes to pass a message to all the PoTO fans in the universe; here it is:

'Tell them all to visit their nearest comic book stores ASAP to order the PotO prequel (comic book) that is being solicited this month. It is called "The Trap Door Maker" and the publisher is Treehouse Animation. It's supposed to be 6 or 8 issues long, and their website is at: TreehouseAnimation dot com. They've got several panels posted, and what looks like the cover art to one of the issues.'

I must say, it sounds deadly interesting. Go check it out, good luck.

**Chapter 10**

**Whispers of a Lonely Heart**

The star hath ridden high

Thro' many a tempest, but she rode

Beneath thy burning eye.

She stirr'd not- breath'd not- for a voice was there

How solemnly pervading the calm air!

A sound of silence on the startled ear

Which dreamy poets name "the music of the sphere.

Christine's eyes lit with childish delight as she watched the dancing glass figures revolve on the pedestal to the music of tiny bells. The couple ceased their waltz, and she started to wind the key once more.

"If you would stop playing with that confounded box for one minute – I am trying to concentrate here."

Used to his brusqueness of tone, she put the musical box back away and wandered over to his side, where he was bent over his organ with one hand on the keys and another scribbling on a piece of parchment.

Though he did not ask her to, she hummed to the notes he played, knowing he would want to get the tune just right. And he did not chase her away, which was a good sign. She read these signals like a book with her sharp intuition.

"Have any of these scores ever been played?" she asked, ruffling through the sheets of compositions written in his elegant hand.

"I was a composer before I made my abode here." He would say no more.

"And now you live off your early retirement savings?"

"How," he asked with seething patience, "is it any business of yours how I conduct my affairs?"

She shrugged. "You intrigue me, is all. You are an obsessive, possessive tyrannical recluse; you are also a craftsman, musician, designer, and wonderful with animals."

He looked up. "So what are you telling me that I do not already know?"

"Not much. But I can also tell you that you are hiding things from me: one of those being that…you like me." She felt amazed at her own audacity, but barged on. "You like me because I am unafraid of you."

"What are you, a gypsy fortune-teller? Get out of here!" _Infuriating girl!_ he thought as he watched her retreating back. And yet she brought a smile to his lips. Like her? She thought he _liked_ her! He burned with desire for her. She was dearer to him than anything and anyone on this earth. The very admittance brought the sweetest of pain to his heart. It was like revealing the truth after an age of guilty silence.

He touched the small object tucked in his inner shirt pocket where it nestled like a bloom of forbidden hope. "One day," he promised himself. One day this would be hers. One day _he_ would be hers, and she his. And that would be the happiest day of his life.

But now came the question he resented to ask: how could this lovely fiery thing fall in love with a hulking, accursed man who had only ever shown her his cold and abrasive shoulder? Ought he to ensnare her, to turn her with threats to say yes to his mad proposals? Erik imagined a long and torturous existence ahead, where everyday he would be faced with glares of hatred and icy silence, a life lived with a woman who would despise him with every fibre of her being for being forced into this unholy union. No, that was a path worse than the devil's death.

He would have to be…gentle. Subtle, but persistent. Somehow without ever intending to, he had won her approval. Now he would have to win her heart. But never, ever fall for her charms – no, this time he would be in control. He would be the seducer, the hunter, pulling in his prey bit by bit. And they would see who was the cleverer.

The winter at Candlemere was harsh and long. There seemed to be no escape from the bone-chilling blasts of air throughout the cavernous corridors and chambers, the only respite being furnaces and thick warm fabrics with which to ward off the threat of freezing in one's sleep. Christine, not used to such severe temperatures (it had never snowed in her homeland), could not help feeling rather miserable. Apparently the cold made Erik moody as well – he was worse company than ever. The timid, growing thought that his large presence would offer comfort from the weather was quickly dispelled. But there were moments when he was most cordial, even welcoming. The glow in his amber eyes when he smiled sent, much to her mortification, pleasant warm shudders down her insides. At times like these she wanted nothing more than to throw herself into his arms and lie there till the first shoots of spring. But she was so afraid of wrecking the tender, fragile relationship between them. And it was ironic, because after the shock of their first meeting, she had almost never been afraid of him again.

One morning when the snow had stopped falling, Christine chanced to peek out of the library windows (where she had stoked up the fireplace into a roaring, cheerful inferno) and saw something that took her breath away.

The ground was coated with a pure white layer that glistened like sugar crystals with nary a muddy brown patch of earth visible. All around, leafless trees were draped like wraithlike brides in snowy lace. There was the faintest tinge of blue to the layer of ice – and behold! how beautifully it contrasted with the first slivers of sun that she had seen in a long time. A sharp piercing ray, golden but still faint with the domination of the wintry sky, which was no longer bleak and grey but a light blue. Suddenly Christine could not wait to taste the sugary snow for herself. She dropped the book she was holding and ventured outside.

She had read a children's tale in her early years about a Snow Queen who, in the quiet of the night when everyone was asleep, breathed her magic breath onto all still life and crystallized every twig and blade of grass in a sparkling white dust that was cold to the touch but would melt beneath a child's breath. Recalling the story of long ago, Christine put hr open lips to the surface of a frozen leaf and blew. The fine granules disappeared beneath the heat vapours and revealed the original green, dark and faded from lack of sunlight, but not really dead. She remembered a poem from Charles Roberts:

_When Winter scourged the meadow and the hill_

_And in the withered leafage worked his will_

_The water shrank, and shuddered and stood still, -_

_Then built himself a magic house of glass,_

_Inset with memories of flowers and grass,_

_Wherein to sit and watch the fury pass._

As she raised her head from the shrub, a glint in the near distance caught her eye. It was the lake. The sight of the normally rippling waters stilled into an icy mirror was enough to leave one breathless. So vivid was the crystal-blue of Candlemere that like a foolish child Christine reached out and laid a foot on it, not believing that such beauty could be real.

Her body leaned forward; tentatively, she began to rest her weight on that foot. And as the sun grew stronger, it hit the glassy lake and added streaks of gold and pink to the silver-blue. So enraptured was she by the sight that never did she hear the subtle splintering sound…

Until it was too late.

With a deafening sharp crack like a gunshot, the lake parted, and for a moment Christine had a vision of her foot being Moses' walking stick that had split the Red Sea in two. Then a black blanket of icy cold swallowed her up.

She never heard the splash. Her body was already overwhelmed by the fine daggers of ice piercing her heart. Too late for crying, too late for help, too late…

Those were her last thoughts as all others left her.


	11. Run To You

Goodness, thanks for all the kind reviews! Tink20, EriksTrueAngel, Rose&Nightingale, Kathy L, moderndaybattosai, invaderoperaghost, scully35, Mominator and jtbwriter.

**tink20:** "Sigh I wish Erik would propose to me…" Don't we all? And don't bite your fingernails too much, cause you never know if an update might be delayed…(gasp) You'd have no nails left.

**Rose & Nightingale:** Yes, I am mean. Mwahaha. I know, I love his mood swings too.

**Mominator:** You're welcome. Fluff…hmm, for all the fluff you want, read this chapter several times over. ;-)

**jtbwriter:** Even the smartest of us do stupid things occasionally. Chris is only human.

Btw, I'm listening to the soundtrack right now! _Point of No Return…._ AHHHHH the sexiest song in the world! Partly responsible for this chap being M-rated.

**Chapter 11**

**Run to You**

The cold azure sky greeted her as her eyes flew open and her mouth swallowed an icy breath of air, wondrous air. Someone was pulling her back from the arms of slimy death, someone was shouting, cursing….

She knew nothing more as she collapsed into black crushing velvet and the musk-scented silk of a man's shirt.

There was an orange-red light at the corner of her vision, swelling and ebbing and frustrating her so that she felt she must scream. At the same time her body was wracked with uncontrollable shivers and waves of blistering heat and stabbing chill. Was this death, was this a mortal spirit fiercely battling the beckoning arms of the reaper? But no, life would not leave her: the blood ran hot and angry in her veins still. She wanted to tear off her clothes. She wanted to bury herself beneath mounds of quilts and never see the world again. She wanted…

A soft new undershirt enveloped her red-hot body, and she fell still once more. Too drained to struggle. Too weak to fight. If she must die, then let her do it…in the arms of one she cared for….

Who? Who was there? Father? His face swam in front of her. Meg, Mattie, where are you, are you married with children now…surely it has not been that long, oh Father do you miss your dear wildflower?

Raoul, dear sweet Raoul, such a good friend – and maybe more… I'm so sorry for disappointing you, Raoul…

Another face, another shape loomed at the edge of the shadowy realm surrounding the familiar countenances of home. She knew who he was. And suddenly she wanted to run to him, to cry with relief into his chest. He was the only one she had now. And he was not so bad, really.

He had pulled her from the lake, hadn't he?

Had he? Who was this man? This hulking great panther of a human being, this monster of shifting shadows, this gentle beast who could not bring himself to harm her for all his harsh words? What was his intention in bringing her here? But no, she had come to him. Oh what strange fate that had led her here to the arms of a…

To the arms of a ghost. A ghost who had turned out to be a man. A man full of fear and anger, who had failed to frightened her with forceful threats but could crush her with one smouldering look from his golden eyes.

She saw him now again before her eyes, and now he was not a shadow, but flesh-and-blood behind the phantom's mask. Deliriously she reached out to touch him.

"Erik…"

Her fingers managed to brush his face before faltering, falling. Without meaning to he caught her dropping hand. A hint of a smile crossed her lips as she fell asleep finally with his presence and his warmth watching over her.

Damn her! Damn her for making him do this. Never before had he been so out of control. Pacing in front of the fireplace in the living room, he vividly remembered the pounding in his heart, beating frenziedly like it had never beat before. Luck would have had him taking a stroll outdoors, which he rarely did, to have the first faint warmth of winter sun fall on his face – he had enjoyed it as a small boy. Then he heard the crack, and a desperate wild fear seized him: he ran like a madman across the grounds shouting her name. When there was no response after the splash, no call for help, he fell into a panic that was only alleviated by the merciful sight of her hand disappearing beneath the waters of the lake. With one great heave he dragged her from the certain death that awaited her, not sure of it had already claimed her soul – her face was so white. The bloodless lips frightened him as nothing ever had before. Only after she was safe before the fire and far away from that confounded lake had the irrational fury started to simmer. He was angry, and he did not know why. He was also relieved. The combination of feelings, both equally strong, wearied him suddenly and he collapsed into a high-backed armchair, head in his hands. He was entirely unused to the flurry of emotions: if he was incensed, he was incensed, and God forbid anything else should stop him from being so. So much for being in control! The seducer was now being seduced by an unwitting, infuriating, stubborn woman-girl.

And truth be told, he couldn't say he entirely resented the feeling.

In her dreams, glimpses of a half-masked face stalked her. One side was pallorless, white: a mask of serene death, but with fire burning in its socket. The other was a gargoyle made of flesh instead of stone, a visage scarred by grotesque formations and a bone-like ridge overhanging the ordinary human lips. She knew both, and feared neither. What she feared was the spirit of this man that mocked her and haunted her from every corner of this labyrinth. But that fear came with its own forbidden thrill. It was a primitive female instinct: to be attracted to aggression, to the threat of overpowering domination. She loathed that primeval urge; it was not her. But neither could she deny it.

In her confusion she tossed amidst the cushions, finally throwing off the stifling silk duvet to the floor in a feverish fit. Oh, but she was burning all over. She wanted to be naked and cool and wearing naught but the night air.

The mirror winked at her from the corner of her glazed eye. Throwing off her nightgown with feral abandon, she pressed her body against the glass and sighed at its coolness.

Unknown to Christine, all mirrors were one-way windows into every room and corridor in the building. Nightly Erik would traipse the secret passageways of Candlemere Castle and peer through the various portals, a faithful guardian watching over every going-on in his domain. Despite having a grudging respect for the privacy of others, he sometimes looked in on Christine to find her sleeping peacefully on the queen-sized bed, occasionally smiling with maidenly dreams. And tonight, after the tumultuous emotions following the girl's narrow dance with death, he was in no way prepared for this. Erik felt a wave of simultaneous shock and pleasure as the vision of nude silken skin and heaving breasts revealed itself before him. To his shame, the ordinary man in him was intensely aroused even without wanting to be. He was petrified; stunned. Every detail on her unclothed body was inflamed with invisible fire, from the deeply blushing nipples to the pink flush on her face down her neck, and the gentle slope of her belly leading down to a place that was mercifully still covered, in an unintentionally erotic confection of cream-white lace enveloping her hips and upper thighs. This was no lascivious harlot. This was Persephone caught unawares in her innocent garden of pleasures. And he, the ugly spying satyr, whose eyes did not deserve to look upon such beauty.

Erik realized that his normally bloodless face was inflamed beneath the mask which he ripped off and flung aside, wiping the layer of sweat that lined every fibre of his body. Then he haltingly reached out to touch the cool glass…to touch the place where Christine's breast pressed urgently against the mirrorglass.

Almost as if she sensed his touch, she drew back then came again, this time her belly as well as her chest meeting the surface, sighs from her lips misting the glass. Erik closed his eyes and placed his lips to hers, imagining there was no boundary between them. That her lips would embrace his without a trace of fear…

Then her eyes flew open, and Erik's world was shattered. The connection had been broken.

The look on her face was almost too much to bear. As she stood stock-still, the surprise turning to hardness, he disappeared like a wounded moth into the shadows.

She stared at the mirror that a few minutes ago had only held her reflection. Then for a split second she had awoken from her heated daze to see the ghostly suggestions of another face. Erik's face, with its deformed skull and the burning gaze of amber.

Shame and shock and anger assaulted her and made her cheeks burn. How had she allowed him to take such an advantage? Yet as she cooled her feverish skin on the glass, an unbidden part of her had conjured up a fleshly apparition of Erik in place of the mirror, his musky scent overriding her senses, his sure grip that had held her hand so tightly as she teetered over a cliff's edge on the small of her waist, pushing her closer to him – forcefully, almost violently.

To be devoured by a beast…

The door burst open. She whirled on him in a hot rage, arms covering her chest.

"You…you…"

"Christine –"

"You DARE to enter uninvited after that…that – !"

"I came to apologize, Christine!"

"Apology not accepted!" How flaming were her hazel eyes now, her hair askew with curls sticking in every direction. "I thought you to be a man, Erik, but you have proven yourself to be nothing more and nothing less than a monster!"

The stabbing hurtful words of his mother came back to him and swallowed him up in their hatred, though his dark passive face did not show it.

"I wish to leave tomorrow, Erik. I want nothing to do with you…I…"

Her anger made her dizzy, and suddenly the fever returned in swelling waves: Christine felt her feet leave the floor. The room was losing its focus.

"Christine…" His voice was distant, yet she felt him catch her as she fell.

"I hate you," she murmured.

"I know."

Blackness of vision came, but consciousness persisted. He was carrying her to the bed; she moaned. "No…not the bed…so warm…"

"The floor, then?"

"Anywhere."

He lowered her to the smooth night-chilled tiles, then lay beside her.

"How long have I been…how many days have passed?"

"Five days and four nights." He made to get up. "You are burning; I should fetch some water."

She felt cold again. "No, just…stay with me."

"I thought you hated me." He kissed her shoulder.

"I'll hate you in the morning."

Erik looked to the half-curtained window where the first ray of dawn peeked into the room. "It _is_ morning."

As the light grew and illuminated his face, he turned away hastily.

"Why do you hide from me?" she said, her voice soft but strong. "Think you that I still cower from your face, when I don't even shudder at your touch?"

A hint of cynicism touched his smile. "You are delirious, my love. By tomorrow you will show me the same defiance, the same impudence that so betrays your pretty face. You will argue and hiss and fly at me like the beast that I am."

Her lips twisted in a half-grin. "You like it when I do that, don't you?"

H was about to object rudely, when suddenly a shiver ran through her slender frame. Fearing that she might be dangerously sick all over again, he was compelled to warm her with his bodily heat. At the same time he tingled with awkwardness and shame. What right had he to treat an unclothed, vulnerable woman so – to press her against his chest like that, and in doing so outraging her modesty? To thin that she had once raged at him for taking off her soiled dress! And her coming to breakfast in her underwear… But no amount of awkwardness could ward off the weariness that was creeping up on him after four nights with barely any sleep. As he lay cradled with this extraordinary woman, he slipped slowly but surely into a deep slumber.

The name of this chapter is inspired by a Whitney Houston song…

_I want to run to you_

_Won't you hold me in your arms and keep me safe from harm…_

_I want to run to you,_

_But if I come to you_

_Tell me, will you stay_

_Or will you_

_run away?_


	12. After the Nightmare

Part 12 is up!

I opened up my inbox one day and there were all these kind reviews! Wow. So this is why writing fanfiction – or phanphiction as we call it – is so addictive.

Misty B: Ah! What an honour, to have one of my favourite authors on my review alerts list.

Mominator: More you want, and more you shall have!

Rose & Nightingale: No, keep dreaming. Dreaming is healthy and makes one happy.

moderndaybattosai: The fever is merely a catalyst to bring out her hidden desire. Capische? 

tink20: So if you do something drastic, it'll be _my_ fault:-0

Faust: Interesting trivia! Thanks for sharing.

jtbwriter: To tell you the truth, I dunno. But that's the interesting part… 

katakechicken: Interesting pen name. Oh, I can, and I did. And there will be more. Mwahaha!

Jjah-jjah: No relation to jjah-jjah binks? And you don't need to thank me for doing something that makes me happy…which is writing fanfic! I'd continue writing even if you hated it, and that's a promise.

Lotte Rose 37: Mucho thanks, love! I'm drowning in your flattery. I haven't blushed so much since my dancing instructor told me my zip was down while I did the cha cha.

So... on to business!

**Chapter 12**

**After the Nightmare**

The emaciated panther prowled back and forth in its filthy cage, watched by the hooded boy in the corner-most tent – a gaudy orange affair atop which was emblazoned the words 'Freaks of Nature', and below in smaller lettering: '4 francs per show'. All around, dizzying carnival music wove an eerie distorted rhythm that added to the surreal atmosphere. Faces passed by, meaningless faces connected to hands that might toss a coin or two, the intentions in their eyes shaded by the dark of night.

Sometimes the boy would throw scraps to the animal, but tonight he had none to spare. His master, Armand had given him the most meagre of rations for a poor performance yesterday. Instead of leering like a goblin at the eager public, he had crouched in the shadows like a moody beast, only moving a few inches when the whip rained down upon his hardened back. At times like these he dreamt of becoming a panther himself, to maul with his claws anyone who stood in his way of escape. To break free of this cage and bound off with powerful legs into the night.

A soft hand laid itself upon his shoulder, interrupting his reverie. It was Elissa, the mute bearded girl with arms that were hairy like an ape. Erik secretly fancied her for her beautiful sad eyes. Despite her hirsuteness she had the most feminine sloping shoulders and walked with the grace of a ballet dancer. Occasionally he found himself thinking of ways to make her smile – her whole face lit up when she smiled – but it was difficult; she was the most reserved of beings, although there was a special look she reserved for Erik alone that went beyond words. In a world without love, they had formed a tight unspoken bond of friendship.

_It's time,_ her eyes said. Erik nodded, yet one hand tightened on his hood involuntarily.

The onlookers crowded around the chest-high fence as one by one the monstrosities showed themselves beneath the spotlight. There were people of all ages – a paunchy gentleman jingling loose change in his pocket which he threw at the feet of the performers in a parody of generosity; a group of children, freckle-faced and gap-toothed and poking their fingers unabashedly at the curiosities before them; a bawdy-looking bunch who looked like they were fresh from a few rounds at the nearest tavern. How ugly they were with their mouths twisted in disgust and delight, their eyes gleaming and oily beneath the uneven gas lights, an eager gluttonous cacophony of jeering voices. As he performed the usual deed of whipping off his hood and pulling a face that heightened his ghastliness, he cast a sidelong glance at Elissa, who held her head high despite the trashy shouts of the crowd, whose bearded face held such quiet dignity that there were those among the audience who were touched with awe and guilt; they were the ones who slipped away shame-faced while others continued to cling on to the fence until their four francs' worth of time was up.

Erik reached out to hold her hand, but the whip on his back stopped him. From its rusty cage, the panther roared. It had never growled so ferociously before.

Suddenly incensed, he snatched the whip from his ringmaster's hand and threw it down: the crowd gasped. Then shock turned to delight as the youth attacked the man, his ugly face twisted in hatred. Now this was what they called a show! Armand managed to overpower Erik for an instant and bashed the side of his head. Elissa cried out.

He whipped his head around. The mute girl had called his name! Taking advantage of his surprise, Armand kicked the boy in the stomach, and Erik fell down groaning. But as the burly, filthy-haired man towered over him, he shot out a hand and stabbed two fingers into the glowering eyes. Armand screamed in pain; the audience cheered. They were like a pack of wolves who had turned against their leader.

Erik leaped over the rickety fence, then turned back and held out a hand. "Elissa! Come!"

She hesitated for the briefest instant, then clambered over the bars, her hand safely in his. Oh, how often had he had dreamed of this moment! Most of the people let them weave their way out; those who would stand in their way were met with Erik's hissing grotesque grin.

He thought they had made it. He thought they were free.

He was wrong.

A rough hand clamped on his shoulder and spun him around, and he was staring into Armand's half-mad swollen eyes. Too late he realized he had chosen the wrong day to pick a fight: the man had been indulging his drinking habit especially heavily, and there was the drunken fire of liquor in him.

"Leave us alone!" growled Erik.

"You think I'll let you go…for humiliating me like that?" He pulled out a slim wicked knife that glinted in the moonlight. "Let's duel for your freedom then."

Elissa gasped. "Take me, Armand, let Erik go!" Her voice was awkward and half-swallowed from lack of use, but to the boy's ears it was beautiful. Armand pushed her aside inconsequentially, as if she was a ghost.

"I have no weapon; put away your knife. Let us fight fairly."

Armand gave a harsh laugh. "You must be of nobleman's blood, to have such high ideals!" Without warning, he struck. Erik was forced to duck, to swerve around the onslaught of blows, and each fall of the blade was like the reaper's breath on his mortal thread of life. As the boy began to falter, Armand grew sneakier, and eventually his knife found an undefended spot: Elissa saw with horror-stricken eyes the final thrust that would end her friend's life.

"Nooo!"

She threw herself at Erik, and at the same time the long blade pierced clean through her back and into her heart.

He would never forget the pained, shocked look on her face as she died in his arms. Vaguely he heard his own cries of despair. Then they turned into one sharp howl of vengeance. He looked up at her murderer, and there was a cold fire in the amber eyes. Armand tried to run. Too late, the same knife that had fell the gentle girl came for its owner, and with a strangled choke he died on the cobblestones.

An uncertain period of time later, he was wandering down a grimy alleyway, Armand's money pouch tied to his waist and Elissa in his arms. A faint drizzle chilled his scantily-clad frame, and as the cold numbed his shoulders he thought he must be dead. As lonely as he was, it was better to be dead.

Then he saw the light at the end of the narrow street, and a glimmer of life seeped back into his veins. Faster and faster his feet brought him closer to that merry throng of light and laughter. Finally he stood before the sprawling, magnificent white-and-gold building. The Palais Garnier, the largest opera house in Paris.

Young Erik did not know it yet, but his journey to the pinnacle of greatness and the descents of despair, and the disastrous obsession that came with it, would begin here.

"Elissa!" He jerked awake, expecting it to be pitch black but was greeted with the light of day.

Snug against the curve of his chest, Christine was rudely awakened by Erik's python grip on her arm. "Wh – what is it…?"

"Oh…nothing." He felt drained from the traumatic dream, and very foolish.

"Goodness, it's cold." She sat up on the floor, and it was then that Erik saw her smallish teardrop breasts, firm but with a delicious weight that was lightly shadowed by the weak winter light. He threw a sheet from the bed at her. "Put some clothes on," he said, his face a deep shade of red.

She was taken aback at his brusqueness. "What is it?"

"What is what?" He was being cold, diffident, despite the rush of blood that went all the way down to his well-formed shoulders.

She recalled something, and frowned. "Who is Elissa?"

"Nothi – nobody. Just someone I used to know."

"And why…what happened between…between us?"

"Nothing you'd care to hear of."

"Nothing, nobody, what is it?" She felt the old fire coming back, and she couldn't help it. "Look, if I did something foolish I want to know about it. You don't need to – "

"Be quiet – "

" – protect me into believing I'm still a sweet innocent virgin –"

"I said be quiet!"

"What right have you to tell me to be quiet!" Her voice was still slightly weak from the fever from which she had just recovered, but she let it go as loud as she could.

Like the arguments of old, they glowered at each other until their eyes hurt from glaring so much.

"You don't have to protect me," she repeated quietly.

"Don't I?" He smiled grimly. "What do you think I've been doing these past few days?" Instantly he regretted saying that.

"Oh! Then I suppose I am much obliged to you for taking care of me. As for saving my life...goodness, how long it will be before I pay off such a huge debt?"

"When have I demanded payment for anything?"

"If I had money, I would pay you. I detest being beholden to someone…"

"What? Go on, say it. Someone like me?" he growled. "Somehow I did not expect something as warm as gratitude from your catty little heart."

She crossed her arms over her chest, now draped in the cream-white bed sheet, but then grudgingly gave in. "I _am_ grateful."

"Prove it," he sneered.

The smirk on his face disappeared as she pulled his head towards hers to land her lips on his. Her kiss was as strong as a current, as gentle as a butterfly. With one touch she stung his lips like a bee, so sweet was the pain that thundered in his heart. This was mindlessness: this was ecstasy.

Then he grabbed her arm and pulled her roughly towards him. "How dare y –!" Her protest was cut short as he did the same to her, only harder, more intense, his lips devouring, almost raping hers. They wrested for control; she struggled in his grip even as her mouth responded readily to his passion. As soft muffled groans escaped their locked lips they fought and writhed until she tore herself, finally, out of his hold.

"Most gentlemanly of you, to accost me like that!" she thundered.

"I suppose you taking the first advantage doesn't count."

"You spied on me in my room!"

"And yet you fell asleep willingly with the man who so molested you!" His voice was soft, sardonic, yet pained. "My God, Christine, there is not a waking moment when some thought of you does not cross my mind. You haunt me with your stubborn gaze, you are an unwitting temptress that pulls me from the peaceful depths of sleep at night; even when I am at the organ, you come uninvited into my music and change it with your fire and dew and spirit! Is it not enough without you letting me in, then pushing me out like this? Say you loathe me, say you think me a monster and not a man, leave me if you must! I will prepare you a coach, enough clothing and food to last you your journey back to your beloved family. I will do what I must to rid you from my mind…if you really hate me that much, I will do it." He seemed to collapse then, to fold into himself, defeated, all the force of his towering form gone.

"Do you still think I hate you?" she asked. "Why did I kiss this deformed monster, as you call yourself, this cursed figure who is no wealthier or kinder than any other man? Why did I trust my safety to his embrace? Why do I look at the fresh flowers on my bedside table – yes, don't think I don't notice – and smile, and think of you?"

All he could do was glare at her, wanting to hate her, but knowing he couldn't if his life depended on it.

"Damn you," he whispered finally.

"It's strange," she said, as if she had not heard him. "I've changed so much since I've met you. Never before have I been so intensely angry, then so deeply…in love… I have never been filled with such passion and such sadness and happiness before you came into my life." Her eyes grew distant. "And then I heard your music…like angels making love grandly before an open fire." She laughed softly, then grew serious. "Erik, will you play for me?"

He tilted his head at her, and his mouth changed from its stormy scowl to stop at the threshold of a smile. "Only if you sing for me."

Winter icicles quivered in the stiff biting wind, and the frozen lake had never seemed so still. In less than a month the chill would be over and the spring would melt the kingdom of ice into gentle green once more, though in these parts the sun was slower to arrive. On the outside, Candlemere Castle was as cold and brooding as ever. But from its windows an invisible warmth glowed, stoked by the sounds of music and contentment and – perhaps – even happiness.


	13. Dreams, Choices and a Marriage

**I'm sorry that my replies to your individual posts were lost, but my computer recently was given a revamp…and some files just went kapush! **So since I can't remember what on earth I wanted to say to everyone, let me just thank all my loyal reviewers (you know who you are) as well as the new ones, Mouse in the Opera House and Jjah-Jjah. I cherish each and every one of you, and you give me more reason to write than ever.

So here goes…and I **know **you'll love this. Be patient and read till the end!

**Chapter 13**

**Dreams, Choices and a Marriage**

_Strangers in the night, exchanging glances,_

_Wondering in the night: _

_What were the chances_

_we would fall in love before the night was through?_

_Something in your eyes was so exciting,_

_and in your smile, inviting…_

_In my heart I knew I must have you._

Strangers in the Night (Frank Sinatra)

The bent, greying man had always known this would be his final journey. Once a hale and strapping figure even in middle age, now he was a shell of himself and living on his last breath. His lungs were contracting, coated with a layer of ice as his heart slowly came to a halt. All pain had left him. Arnaud sensed Death knocking on his door, but he felt strangely fulfilled. He would rather die knowing he had tried, rather than live knowing he had not. The chill in his limbs turned to warmth, and he was tired, and he was falling asleep. Above his fallen figure, the leafless branches of the winter forest were like dark cracks against the unforgiving sky.

In a dream, a tall fair-haired lady clad in white formed from the snow particles. The ice queen reached for him, and her hand was surprisingly warm and gentle, gripping his firmly. Then he looked into her smiling eyes, and the golden curls turned brown; her face became Christine's. Only it was not the face of the child he had watched playing beneath the magnolia tree: this was a woman's hand, a woman's face! His wildflower bud had burst into bloom. And there was a glow to her cheeks – was she happy, wherever she was? Then a shadowy figure embraced her and hid her from view, as all his world disappeared into night.

Agathe Giry awoke from a dream of a young chubby-faced Matilde running towards her, eyes all alight with the exercise of tearing about outdoors with little Meg. The child was beautiful even at ten; already her nose had an elegant curve to it, and her lashes were immensely long and black.

"Maman Giry," the girl said, "where is Papa?"

Madame Giry looked at her, a sudden fondness welling up in her heart. "Papa is not here, cherie," she replied. "What is it you want?"

"I want to show him my berry collection." The child dug a hand into her little basket and produced a handful of shiny red and green fruit. "And to tell him his roses are getting bigger, and if he doesn't pluck them soon their heads will fall off." She tilted her head up at Agathe. "When will Papa be back, Maman Giry?"

The woman opened her mouth to answer, and her heart broke in two. She fell to her knees, arms open to embrace the girl she loved as a daughter. "Papa is not coming back, child," she said heavily. "He is never coming back."

Mattie looked at her in disbelief, then drew back a little. "What do you mean?" Her voice was small, fearful.

"He… he cannot be with us. Ever again."

Mattie shook her chestnut head. "I don't believe you." Her childish face was pale, on the verge of crumpling up. Only the tears never came. Her face continued to mature in front of Agathe's eyes until it was an adult's head on a little girl's body. The grown-up Matilde no longer looked shocked, only grieved beyond words, and then the macabre girl-woman figure with its head lolling like an oversized ball on its thin neck turned and ran away.

"Mattie!" Agathe cried. "Mattie, come back!" But Matilde was gone, and the house was empty.

Agathe slumped against the wall next to her bed, dry sobs forcing themselves out of her throat. In her hands was the crumpled letter she was reading when she fell asleep. The last letter Arnaud had written. In the familiar hand his words flowed on the paper:

_To all whom I love,_

_There is something you must know, and because I have never believed in deception I will not mask my words with soothing lies. Against my better judgment I am doing something that may part us for a long time, perhaps even for good. Ever since Christine was stolen from us, there has been an ache in my heart that has never died and which haunts me night after night. Though this pain was greatly dulled by the happy marriages of my lovely Matilde and Meg to their wonderful husbands, still one face remains in my memory and will not fade. Had her death been proven, had I known and accepted that she is gone and dead, I would have been able to close this chapter in my life and live a new day. But that is not so. Christine does not lie deceased, I feel her presence burning strong and wilful like the stubborn person she has always been. And to not seek her out would be like forgetting one whom we all love dearly, to leave her safety and well-being to the whims of a dangerous man. If she has learned to love him and now rests happily within the walls of his abode, I will give them my blessings and leave them be. But I cannot – _cannot_ – rest while the possibility of her living a threatened and miserable existence continues to be. My decision is final. And because I am a man of my word, I cannot promise something __that I might fail to do. I cannot promise to come home. Matilde, I am filled with joy of knowing that you are now with child, but saddened at the thought that I might never be grandfather to him or her. I know not what Meg will do at the news of my demise. You as an older sister must support her emotionally as much as you can. I am placing this burden on you because I know you are a strong and capable person with a generous heart, bless the Lord for that. Meg, you will always be my adored, my cherie. Forgive me and do not grieve too long._

_There is nothing more to say. I love all of you, more than you could possibly imagine. Agathe, I am doing you a great wrong by confessing my fondness for you, then leaving you just when the possibility of a deeper relationship between us had been planted. If you hate me for this, I accept and deserve your animosity. Am I being selfish? Perhaps. But I am only a man. I am only human. I wish only to have my Christine in my arms for just a moment, if only to say goodbye. And I cannot live knowing I have never tried._

_Yours,_

_Arnaud_

She had not been able to bring herself to show the letter to the girls until after the official news of Arnaud's death, about a week later. It was only at the sight of Mattie's tears and Meg's white face as she barely remained upright did Agathe's own tears, built up from all the worry and waiting, spill out and threatened to keep on flowing. In the end it was only the collective hope that Christine still lived that brought them out of mourning. She vaguely remembered Raoul's hand gripping her shoulder, holding her as she sobbed. She remembered also that he told her a secret he had kept in his heart all this while, a secret she could not now recall. But she had the feeling he was planning something – something risky. Something he would not want his wife Adeleine to know.

She shook her head. If there was one thing she had learnt from life, it was that sometimes, there was no stopping a person who had made up his or her mind. Her heart was filled with enough grief at the moment: she looked forward only to a new day. Already the first leaves of spring were unfurling outside her window and turning golden-green with the light of the gentle sun.

At roughly the same time Agathe awoke from her restless slumber, Matilde awoke from hers. She turned, half-expecting to see Meg's golden head beside hers, the way they had slept together when they were girls. Instead she saw her husband David's dark red-brown hair, boyishly tousled in sleep, felt the solid warmth of his body. Of course; she was a woman, and she was married, and was going to have a baby. Even Marguerite was grown-up now, and hardly anyone save her close family called her Meg anymore.

And what of Christine? What had become of her, what did she look like, had she met someone? At times, when she was alone and left to her own thoughts, Matilde was filled with an unexplainable and guilty dread that someday her littlest sister would come back to them, and she would come face to face with the familiar rosy-cheeked face to find that something, irrevocably, had changed. A glint in her eyes, perhaps, or that she would open her lips and foreign things would spill out of them. That she would be filled with strange and dark things from her experiences, and would be not quite what they would have expected of a girl who had become a woman – if, indeed, she had lived to become a woman at all. Matilde resented herself for such thoughts. Should Christine ever return, no matter how changed she might be, even if she was incomplete in some way, she would be welcomed with open arms. Oh, if only there would be some sign, some news of the girl being sighted so that she could organize a big, warm homecoming party for a long-lost sister – how grand that would be! A mental picture slipped into her head then, of the slim dark-eyed brunette, her waifish young face filled out with flushing cheeks and full smiling lips, a tall noble personage on her arm…only they could not see who he was. No one could. Only the secretive smile on Christine's face told them she must be content to be at his side. And in Matilde's perfect daydream, they would welcome the happy couple with hugs and hearty kisses and tears. But perhaps they would anyhow. They would give anything to have her back in the comfort of home. If only...if only….

The chestnut-haired woman sighed and closed her eyes, and fell back to sleep eventually.

The young man's heart thundered in his chest, guilt accosting him and staying his hand from reaching for the reins of his horse. Raoul's fair head turned to gaze upon the manor he called home, and then away towards the distance that lay between him and a woman he loved still.

Wrong thoughts, guilty thoughts. Feelings no married man should have. He brushed aside these whispers: he would only be gone for a while, he would be back and safe in the arms of his wife soon. Soon enough. He had told her he was meeting a long-lost friend in Provence, a friend to whom he owed a big favour, and she had frowned a little, then nodded trustingly. "Solene and I will wait for you," she had said (she was convinced the baby would be a girl). What had he done to deserve her trust? Would she ever forgive him of she found out? Oh, what could be worth all this deception! But Christine was worth it. He knew deep in his heart of hearts that she was worth it.

What a fine Vicomte he made, indeed. He wondered what his father would think of him. Then the old man's stern steel-grey brow appeared like a looming angry spectre in his mind, and he quickly pushed the image out of his thoughts. What does my late father matter, he thought. Adeleine is what matters, and the daughter she carries. Adeleine will understand.

No. She will not. What self-respecting woman would smile and nod once she knew that her husband had gone off chasing after an old childhood sweetheart? Ah! Foolish boy. Foolish, foolish, foolish. Still his hand reached out for the leather reins, and once it held, it would not let go.

Too many rules. Too many odds standing against him. He was being stupid, he was being rash, he was acting like an adolescent boy and not a man with a family.

But he was also doing what was right.

Against all odds, he finally mounted the waiting steed and rode with a mask of confidence into the horizon, where the sun kissed the cold dawn sky and stained it pink.

Christine's eyes flew open in the black of night. Her breath came in tearless sobs as she lit the bedside candle. As the glowing light cast warm shadows on the walls, relief coursed through her veins. She collapsed back into bed. Something bad had happened. Father…something bad. But it was just a dream. A nightmare.

Her body was wearied, but her mind's eye stayed as alert as a barn owl's. finally she gave up efforts of sleep; throwing on a loose silk robe over the chemise she wore to bed – she had given up wearing proper nightclothes, not that her host cared – and slipped out into the corridor.

After all this time, the castle had not revealed all it secrets to her. Christine had the feeling that the place had a spirit and temper of its own – there were forbidding doors and long tapering alleys she encountered the night before that seemed to be missing the day after, replaced by prosaic blank walls. And though the chandelier preceding the main doors was a dead and ancient thing, occasionally she thought there were a few of its crystals, which might simply be dust balls but then again might not be.

Tonight her wandering feet brought her to the stairway that led to the southwest wing of Candlemere, where the carpeting was strangely tattered and moulding unlike the rest of the castle's finery. The corridor after the end of the staircase was a lightless gaping mouth that revealed nothing of the secrets that Erik sought to keep from prying eyes. For he had forbade her, in shadowy overtones of menace, to never set foot into the southwest chamber.

Was it a treasury, a safe of some sort where valuables were kept? Christine was insulted that Erik might think her untrustworthy. Surely she had proved herself to be a forthright person? She had hidden nothing from him. From the very moment she set foot in Candlemere Castle, she had withheld nothing. Yet Erik kept plenty of secrets from her. She respected his need for privacy: and so though her lips itched many a time to ask him what lay beyond the shut doors, she refrained from doing so.

Now the room called to her. Rather than looming over her with dark menace, it sang to her, softly, soothingly, temptingly. Luring her in like a lurking panther that knew, with overpowering confidence, that the prey already belonged to it. Only a matter of time, and then…

What was that sweet familiar melody? Then she realized it was not the secret chamber that sang to her, but the deep melodious voice of the Phantom. The beast with a voice of an angel. The curious side of her still yearned to look behind the tightly shut doors, but the yearning to play and sing at his side was stronger still. She could already anticipate the barest touch of his fingers on hers as he tried to tell her where to place her fingers for the duet, not that she didn't already know. But usually she gave in to his guidance: he was truly a maestro. It was only when he was submersed in his music that he was so gentle, as gentle as the day she had first saw him with the horses. There were seldom words of praise even when she played at her best – only a nod of the head, a general aura of pleasure at the intermingling of her sweet, strong voice with his slightly husky baritone.

_Come to me,_ the song seemed to whisper, soft but commanding. _Come and sing by my side. Forget all this, forget the shadows: come to the music where we can both be worthy of heaven, if only for a while._

"I am coming, Erik," she whispered. "And sooner or later, your secrets will be mine. Just as I will be yours."

She entered the familiar chamber to find him thundering away at the organ. The tentative sweetness had ascended into a stormy passion that possessed him and carried him away to unknown realms. He had ceased to sing, and Christine's voice filled the emptiness left by the absence of his own. She continued unbidden to ride on his power and to bring her own into the magical duet, higher and higher, until her voice was like a cry to the heavens, and never noticed when the music stopped for the music that was in her head and soul went on and on forever, stretching to eternity. Until the hand that had made the music grasped her shoulders, hot and fierce and tender.

"What brought you here?"

"You did." She was no longer here. She was floating, a spirit, a blissful light; yet she was more here than anywhere else. The world was an illusion except for both of them.

She felt his arms around her then, pressing and pleading and wanting, and all she could do was give. She wanted him to, whatever it was, it was time and she was ready. The coldness of the mahogany organ was against her back, and his hand was on the flesh of her behind, then she caught his lips with hers and communicated her desire with a long, fiery kiss. Inflamed, he came with full force yet did not overpower her, only taking her in one searing, sweet painful sensation that stabbed her like a sword hot from the smith's hammer. She was crying, she was laughing with joy, and her vision swam with a golden aura. Again and again and again the shocking waves rode her feverish body. She was him, he was her, they were as close as two human beings could possibly be and she wanted the feeling of him inside her forever. He cried out then, his whole being tensed, and she held him tightly as all passion came flowing forth in a final burst of ecstasy.

There was nothing but heaven after that. They were dead. They were alive. They were blessed.

"You give yourself to me willingly?" Love, so much love in his voice.

"You know the answer."

"Say it nonetheless!"

_"I do."_

He let go of her, and when she opened her eyes she was looking into his, and his chest was pressed against hers. The man's shirt she wore was soaked with sweat. "What strange manner of wedding vows are these?" he asked huskily, tenderly, all ferocity gone.

"Wedding…yes…but we need a priest."

"I will be your priest," he said, lifting her into his arms. "And your saviour, and your light and darkness…and your husband."

_"Husband…"_ The word on her lips sounded strange, and she realized the finality of this. "Erik…surely…." Further speech would not come. A wineglass was held to her lips, and she drank of it.

"The holy chalice," she murmured. "And this will join us in flesh and spirit, till death do us part?"

"Till death do us part," he vowed and drank from the goblet as well. "You are trembling all over. Are you not well, my bride?"

She managed to steady herself, the she looked at him, her lover…her husband. "Erik, I cannot be married!"

"Why not? I see…you would want a ring?" His face lit up, as if he had just thought of it. "Of course, a ring would make it complete, official…"

"You don't understand. I cannot…how can I be…"

As if not hearing her, he withdrew from his coat pocket a wonderfully crafted thing, a tulip frozen in the bloom of its life, with white silken petals whose roots blushed a deep pink. A blushing bride, Christine thought. Fastened to the back was a gold pin. It was a brooch, most cunningly made and which was about to become hers.

"I have been waiting for the day I might give this to you." His baritone was now a whisper, and incredibly, the graceful artistic fingers were trembling just the slightest. "This is a very special gift, a gift meant for the most special and beautiful of persons, and it is as precious as the most exquisitely cut diamond ring in the world. Christine," he said, pinning the tulip onto her breast, "be my wife."

It was a long time before she could trust herself to speak. "Erik, love," she said finally in a strangely rational tone, "Marriage… it-it's not a hasty thing, it must be…considered…thought over…and you must realize how – how final it is, that it is not to be taken lightly –"

"My God, Christine, do you think for one moment that I am taking this lightly?" He knelt before her. "Woman, I have never been more serious about anything in my life. I will ask you again, with the Lord as my witness: Will you be my wife?"

She closed her eyes for the room was spinning. "This is all happening too fast."

"Will you?"

"Erik, it's not that I…"

_"Will you?"_

Her eyes flew open. "No!" It burst out of her, unintended, her voice too loud for her own ears. She was instantly sorry, but it could not be helped. And the sobs were coming, much as she hated them. "Sorry! I love you, but no!" And because she could not stand to be there, she wrenched herself from his presence and ran. Ran and ran until she was far from his overwhelming gaze, his grip on her hand. She felt stained suddenly. All she wanted was the cool wind on her face to wash away the guilt. But the castle still held her in its power. She needed someplace to hide, to get away for a while. And when a pair of dark, comforting doors showed itself before her eyes, she gratefully threw them open and fell into the cavernous room: they slammed shut behind her.

All was silent then. It was like a blanket, blocking out all traces of sound. Gradually as her senses reclaimed themselves she looked around, vision adjusting to the dimness. Gloomy and indefinable shapes filled the chamber, and as she took in her surroundings, a pit opened up in her stomach as she realized: she was in the forbidden wing.

Her heart really pounded then, rang in her ears like the thundering of wrathful angels. Yet all she could do was go deeper and deeper into this mystery, this missing piece of the Phantom's life.

_In all your darkest dreams, you always knew…_

And now came the moment of truth. Form after menacing form loomed upon her, some small and bent and twisted like wrecked candelabras, some disproportionately large, like leering hump-backed goblins. But of course it was all imagination. There were the same lofty windows found in all parts of the castle: and the heavy, dust-ridden velvet curtain was all that stood between this place and the illuminating light. She reached for the tasselled cord that would lift the fabric.

I know Erik is originally a tenor, but I made him a baritone for this story because it suits the character. I imagined him to have a rather growling, feral presence when he's being beastly; and naturally a deeper, rougher voice seemed to fit. (I apologize to the purists but you're welcome to write your own versions; this is mine. ) And what is it, really, that the Phantom strives to hide from Christine's eyes? Ah! Find out in the next chap! (Can you say 'shameless self-promotion'?)


	14. The Secret Room

You know, I think moderndaybattosai was one of the few who actually understood Erik's and Christine's feelings in Chap 13! Perhaps I wasn't clear enough, or maybe you guys were too in love with E to comprehend C's refusal. I decided not to follow the romantic novel's formula of the heroine jumping into her proposer's arms at the first mention of marriage. But they will be together eventually! Or will they? Oh how fun it is to tease readers.

To new reader CatofHope, I hope you continue to enjoy the story! Feel free to critique any part you feel could use improvement. 

**Chapter 14**

**The Secret Room**

"Days go by, I'm hypnotized

I'm walking on a wire;

I close my eyes and fly out of my mind

Into the fire…"

Then one of the treasures caught her eye, and her hand wandered away from the curtain. Something was wrong. And she felt an acute guilt at her unwelcome presence in this place. She was like a stain upon the floors and walls; her very breath was a desecration of the untouched, unmoving air. The air, she thought. It smells strange. There was a faint something...an odour that grew stronger as her head cleared.

It was here, however, that she began to recollect, to recover from the hasty marriage she had abruptly put an end to. Oh, how cruelly she had denied him. Had she, though - been cruel? Thoughtless, yes, but to marry so suddenly, to so suddenly be husband and wife... She loved Erik. Loved him with all her generous heart, but there was also a fear that he was controlling her, manipulating her. After all, she was within his territory. She had long ceased to be his prisoner and become almost an equal inhabitant of the castle, but at any moment he might clamp his iron grip around her powerless form, and there was nothing she could do to stop him. She might scream at him, tear out his hair with her claws, but it would be futile. In all her wildest dreams, strangely enough, Christine had never thought of herself as someone's wife. She had fantasized of being a pirate's lover, a freedom fighter's paramour, and played various other roles in overly romantic settings in her blissful girlish daydreams. But never had the idea of being wedded actually crossed her mind. Until the day Raoul had took her for a walk in the gardens and nearly proposed to her.

How awkward and innocent his approach had been! thought Christine. She had almost said yes on account of his boyish shyness, which she found heartbreakingly endearing, and the fact that they were such good friends. But then, good friends could be torn asunder with a bad marriage. And it was silly to think of him now - he would be married, he would have children soon, and he will stop thinking of me after a while._ I have no place in his life anymore. _

_Why?_ she asked herself. _Why should I not marry Erik? But then again, why should I? There is so little I really know about him. Our relationship is one of mist and shadow and brief passionate moments, no more solid than any of my silly childish fantasies! _The reality of this struck her with the force of a hammer to the heart, and she sank to her knees, tears forming anew in her eyes. Bowing her head, her cheek brushed against the soft fabric of a skirt. She lifted her gaze, and looked into the shadows and curves that formed the suggestion of a mannequin, or a life-sized sculpture clothed in a peasant dress. It was the piece that she had reached out to touch. Curiosity reawakened, she laid a tentative hand upon what she perceived to be a shoulder. Beneath the satin, she felt a slight elasticity that was not marble or wood or stone. Feeling her way down, she came to the point where the sleeve stopped, gathered by a shabby lace cuff. Then the flesh of the statue - strange! Christine gasped. It's almost like skin. She felt a cold jolt run through her abdomen at the realism of the thing.

Then the moonlight caught the stiff arm, bent upwards a little as if in the midst of greeting. She squinted to read the carved-in markings on the girl's arm. The first one was like an F, no an E...then followed by an L - and I, S, another S -

Christine drew back abruptly. A horrible suspicion was blooming in her mind, thundering at the walls of her heart. She dared not give voice to it. But it must be done. She had come too far not to know the truth, and the truth required courage. Without taking her eyes off the figure, one hand groped for the cord and with one firm jerk pulled back the curtains.

Oh! Even steeling herself against the worst of possibilities could not have prepared her for this - this statue, it was no marble concoction cleverly disguised in soft clay. Oh God! It was a corpse! A stuffed and preserved corpse, but even the strongest of preservatives had not been able to stop the lips from turning bluish-black, the sockets from sinking into a fleshy rotting abyss, the skin into a pale and putrid thing that stopped just at the threshold of all-out decay. And the eyeballs! They were half-eaten jelly-like spheres, though in the middle of the yellow-grey whites she could still glimpse a hint of the original colour - dark brown, the shade eerily close to hers. As Christine's foot accidentally shot out in her haste to back away, the dead girl swayed on her carefully positioned pose, and one of the eyes, disattached from its decayed optical nerve, fell from the socket and rolled to brush against Christine's foot.

A strangled sound escaped her throat, something between a hiss and a short sharp cry. "Please," she whispered to no one. "Please, stop." Then the body began to really move, to swing slowly forward. The lifted arm seemed to rise on its own will, and lips that had been beautiful once but had become disfigured with age were like a forced smile, revealing blackened teeth with the occasional gleam of the original white.

"Please, don't come any closer," Christine whispered with white lips. She felt her feet evaporating beneath her and she landed on the floor. Then, with one horrid creaking sound, the corpse fell forward onto its face, hitting the carpet with a thud. The stiff arm, having been shaken loose from its frozen position, dropped limp and heavy onto her back.

It was the final straw. Christine was not naturally given to screaming fits; instead a low, guttural cry escaped her before shock stilled her vocal chords; but her vision remained crystal-clear, which unfortunately wiped out any chances of fainting. Like a tunnel her thoughts were focused one purpose and one purpose alone: getting out of here. So on fear-numbed knees, she dragged herself determinedly to the doors, which were suddenly most awfully far away. Crawling, crawling, closer and closer to the safe and odourless air that lay beyond. When she finally reached her destination, she managed to push herself up enough to fumble on the handles, which revealed only that the door was stuck. Channelling all her strength into her arms, she pounded and pounded on the solid oak. "Erik!" she cried - or tried to, for all sound had left her throat. But her dogged banging with her fists had not fallen on deaf ears, and shortly after the doors were flung open and she found herself swallowing deep gulps of air even though she was not suffocating.

After the threat of hysteria she looked up expecting to be greeted with the comforting fierceness and worry of a distraught Erik, but to her fright she saw only coldness in the golden eyes. For a second she thought him to be a corpse, same as the poor dead girl, but then his lips moved. "You found Elissa," he said softly.

Christine nodded gratefully. "Erik..." she tried to stand, tried to embrace him, but her effort was met with a sudden strangling grip on her neck, and then she was being thrown backwards into a large, ornate candelabra. The fire from the wax candles singed her hair but was snuffed out by the force of their fall.

"Have I not forbidden you," he roared, "from setting foot into that God-damned chamber!"

"Erik, please - " She made once again to throw herself against his chest, consequences be damned, but he would not let her. She felt her feet lift from the floor, and he slammed her against the wall. Pain wracked her body, and she thought she felt a rib crack. So this was what she had almost married: a monster. She felt cold inside; something broke off and sealed itself, and could not be repaired. All at once the sobs came. They had been pleading to burst forth since the encounter with the dead Elissa, and they would not be restrained any longer. At her tears, Erik suddenly felt horrible. "My God, Christine...I am so sorry..."

What had he done? Was he more a monster than ever, than when he had first held her tenderly in his arms, first whispered words of love into her ear? She had betrayed his trust, but so what! – his heart was already hers, and forever would be!

He pulled her into his arms, but she struggled out of his grip and stood a distance away. New strength flowed into her shaking limbs, though she felt no comfort at it. "I am sorry too, Erik."

"Christine, my love - " He came near her, but she backed off. "Forgive my outburst - I am nothing but a fool, an idiot. Let us never speak of this again. Christine, why do you run from me?"

Her features were clouded in sorrow. "I cannot be with you, Erik," she said. Her eyes rose to face his, unflinchingly. "I refuse to marry you. And hence I can no longer..." She struggled with the next sentence, but pushed on. "I can no longer stay here." She turned to leave.

"Where are you going!"

"To pack my things. Or what little of them that belongs to me." She walked till she came to the foot of the stairs that led to her room.

"Christine, you are insane, you cannot leave just like that!" She ascended the steps, and he thundered after her.

Turning around, she challenged him. "I suppose you will try to stop me."

He was at a loss for words and stood there, guilty and infuriated and lost.

"You can lock me in my room, Erik," she said. "You can keep me there and starve me until I become a corpse like that poor girl Elissa - whose name you once cried out in sleep." He flinched. "But you will have won nothing."

"You don't understand," he growled. "You don't know how much I loved her. And you - you desecrated her body!"

"And you would kill me for destroying a shell of a person that is no longer there!" She could not maintain the cold exterior for long, and as sure as her cheeks heated up, her tears flowed again. "I knelt at your feet and looked for forgiveness and mercy, and all I saw was cruel anger. I felt so sorry for leaving you at the marriage altar after you had so earnestly asked for my hand, but now I see that you would have controlled me as if I was a puppet! I am no wife of yours - I am a love slave!" Angrily she wiped her face with the back of her hand. "Well, I refuse to be obliged to you any longer. Henceforth I shall no longer eat your food and drink your wine and sleep in _your _beds - "Her chin stuck out most determinedly, she climbed the last step and went to open the door to her room. "I am going."

For the next ten minutes the castle shook with his fury. This was an outrage, a mad feat; Christine was being unreasonable and stupid and emotional; every accusation flew out of his mouth and landed on her door, but to no avail. Inside her heart Christine was sobbing, but her body went on inexorably, placing the few pieces of clothing into her worn travelling bag that she had not touched for so long, followed by a pearl-inlaid comb that Erik had insisted she wear for dinner once. She gazed at it with a touch of fondness before reluctantly including it among her meagre luggage. At least she would have something to remember him by. But the brooch... Christine's fingers traced the exquisite shape of the blooming tulip on her breast, then with a shaking hand unpinned it. This was a token of matrimony, and being unmarried to the man who had proffered it, she could not keep it. With a final goodbye to the room, she left closing the door quietly behind her.

Erik had worn out the last reserves of his anger, and now all that was left was a pleading, sorrowful man. "Christine..." He reached out to clasp her hand as she walked by, and she did not pull away. They stood in heavy silence, one proud and the other defeated, both filled with misery. Only her eyes spoke to him: _Let me go, Erik._ And he did, finally. She turned away, then paused. For one joy-filled moment his heart leapt afire with hope. Then she took his hand and laid in it the tulip brooch. Again her pained gaze said a thousand words. _I am not worthy of it. _And then, with the saddest of smiles, _I love you, Erik._

He watched her go, watched her small straight back descending the grand staircase, watched her slender form disappear between the closing doors of Candlemere Castle. And when she was gone, his anguished moan echoed off the cavernous walls. Blind with sorrow, he stumbled back into the darkness. His heart was cold with sorrow; he was already dead. And before he left he would wreck a dead man's destruction upon his kingdom.

Minutes later, the ceiling trembled a little and showed its first cracks; the chandelier swayed, then the cable broke free from its pulley. Bit by painful bit it loosened, until the plaster of the ceiling gave way with a deafening crunching sound and the crystal giant came crashing down. As it made its tragic and last descent, the candles of yore came alight suddenly as if infused with angry ghosts, so that for a brief moment the chandelier was restored to its former majesty. Then it met the floor with a resounding explosion of shattered crystal and a ton of wrecked brass, and the carpet licked up the ghost-flames and spread it throughout the entire castle.

Christine never saw the last of his magnificent wrath, but she turned back to see the eyes of Candlemere Castle blazing with an orange light. Shuddering and suddenly frightened, she ran and ran never looked back again...and flew straight into the arms of a stranger.

The arms tightened around her in a firm grip, and she struggled in bewilderment. "Let me go!" she shouted. "Christine!" a familiar voice exclaimed.

She saw the golden hair mingled with her own dark strands, realized whose arms she was in. _"Raoul!"_

"My God, Christine! What has happened to you – are you alright, are you hurt?" He gave her an intensely concerned once-over. She appeared to be fine…physically, at least. Her hair was in a state of absolute disorder, her face pale save for two red splotches on her tear-stained cheeks, the angry pinkness that always appeared when she was upset. And she was dressed in men's clothes, in a crumpled poet's shirt and breeches that hardly sheltered her from the night cold. But she was in one piece, thank God Almighty, and her health seemed none the worse.

He was completely taken by surprise. Like a foolishly brave knight, he had been prepared to break into the castle and search every room; he had even brought the sword that was his family heirloom to fend off her mysterious captor should he try to stop Raoul from rescuing her. And then she had run right into his arms looking half like a madwoman, and half like a lost, frightened girl. Life could not be stranger.

He draped his cloak around her. "You need a cup of hot tea inside you. Come on, I'm taking you home." But Christine wrestled out of his protective hold. "No," she shook her head, looking more miserable than ever now that the initial shock of seeing her childhood friend was over.

"What do you mean, Christine?" He was puzzled at her behaviour, but put it down to distress. "Look, it's alright…you can return later if…if you want." He cast a shuddering look at the gloomy silhouette of the castle, wondering why on earth she would want to do so. "But for now I think it would be better for you to come with me."

"I…I don't know." She closed her eyes as if to steady herself against some final, difficult decision. "You're right. I suppose you're right." She let herself be led to Raoul's horse. "But I'm never coming back again."

"It would certainly make me happier if you didn't," he said with a forced chuckle. But her white, still face was unresponsive to his attempt at light-heartedness. As he took one more look at her forlorn face before nudging the horse on, he wondered if he would ever see her smile again.

"Light the sky and hold on tight

The world is burning down

She's out there on her own and she's alright"

Sunny Came Home

By Shawn Colvin

Well, that's that; and…hey, don't run off! Don't be disappointed! No, this is not an RC…I promise you, Raoul is much too noble to ditch Adeleine for his childhood sweetheart. You will just have to be patient… More unravelling and explanations in the next chap. In the meantime, see that purple little button on your lower left-hand side? Now move your mouse down to it. Now click on it. In a few seconds (or minutes, if your connection is having a slow day) a little box will open in which you could leave a few nice words for the author, and tell her what you liked and didn't like about the story. 'Kay?  You're the best!


	15. Prophecies

**Oh** my God! I have finally completed 2 chapters. My muse was on a holiday and I had to drag him back kicking and screaming to help me with this. For those of you who have been waiting, I thank you from the bottom of my big heart. For those who have given up and moved on, I don't blame you. I won't bluster about anymore, so on with the story!

**Chapter 15**

**Prophecies**

How I wish I could walk through the doors of my mind;

Hold memory close at hand,

Help me understand the years…

Tears and Rain

James Blunt

The first few days following her return home passed like a dream, hazy in most parts but strikingly lucid in others. She remembered Matilde's crying face, the strong and wiry Madame Giry close to fainting. And one conspicuously missing figure – Arnaud, her father, her dearest, beloved, and only parent. More close to him she had been than anyone in the family. And he was missing. No, more than missing, from the haunted look in Agathe's eyes: he was dead. Though no one actually spoke it, for fear of traumatizing the already shaken girl, the youngest daughter of the Klimt family saw the truth in her sisters' faces and knew nothing more. The world went black and made itself known to her the next day, when she awoke and found that nothing stood up straight anymore. Then she realized she was the one lying down, she was on a bed – her bed, and she was home.

But where was home? This place could not possibly have been the same house she grew up in, the same open spaces where she used to tear about with her sisters until Mattie got too old for such rambunctiousness, and Marguerite became too busy with her many suitors to spare much time for playing tag. After that some of Christine's closest friends had been books. She longed to see the library where, as a little girl, Father had read to her… Father. The very word brought such painful tears to her eyes, that she was determined not to think of it anymore. Her head was pounding: she was down with fever. And her mouth was dry despite the many glasses of water she managed to down. The pitcher by her bedside was always full. She always reminded herself, as she drifted into turbulent sleep, to thank Madame Giry for these small kindnesses…but as soon as she awakened from one vivid nightmare or another, she would forget.

It was always the same nightmare, really, disguised as different stories, at least in the beginning. In one of them she was plucking berries, immersed in gathering as many of the sweet plump things as possible to put in her basket. Then, happily worn out from stretching to reach the berries and being scratched by the briars, she would pop one in her mouth, expecting the reward of the thirst-quenching mouth-watering juice…and instead there would be a terrible coppery taste, and there would be blood on her fingers. She looked up to see Erik with blood on his hands. "This is our unborn child, Christine," he said. "Our child, and you killed it!" And she would scream, realizing she had just eaten her own foetus. And her stomach, when she gazed down at it, was a gaping bloody hole where her womb had been gouged from it.

In another dream, she was running through the woods with Raoul, then hardly out of boyhood, a faint adolescent fuzz blooming on his jaw. In their childish happiness they eventually got lost and separated from each other. A gnarled tree beckoned to her, and unafraid she walked right up to it; then the bark would change into a face, a disfigured face with golden eyes, uttering words she had heard before: "You give yourself to me willingly?" She would reply, "You know the answer."

"Say it nonetheless!"

_I do, I do,_ she was supposed to say. But instead tears broke the happy countenance of her face, and she was backing away. "I can't, Erik," she said. Then she was running and running, but a root tripped her, making her land flat on her stomach; and when she got up, there was blood, blood everywhere. She had miscarriaged. She had killed a baby she did not know was there.

Finally, she was back at Candlemere. Erik was there with her but far away, calling her from a distance. He was not angry or threatening like in the other dreams; he was spent, and miserable and weeping, and she wanted to go to him, to comfort him. But it was too late, for the massive chandelier was crushing her, stabbing her a thousand times with its myriad shards of crystals. Then she was on fire and screaming silently in agony. She dreamed, then, that she awoke to find her bed sheets dampened with big, blooming crimson splotches. Knowing what had happened, she screamed and screamed…until she did actually awaken, in reality, and she was still screaming, but the sheets were dry. Only the familiar arms of Mme Giry combined with strong doses of chamomile tea could calm her after these grisly episodes. Finally, as the fever subsided, the dreams went away and she rose weakly one morning to find herself empty, used up and feeling much older than her years. Yet she was here, and she was alive.

She had not seen or heard Matilde standing over her bed with white face and wringing hands, cursing the man who has brought her sister to this state. Or Madame Giry comforting the young woman, pulling her into a fierce embrace and leading her out of the room…or Raoul, dear solid, dependable, sweet Raoul who had always been there, whose arms she had inadvertently run to after –

After what? Memories filled with anguished voices and ghostly flames surged up repeatedly, but again her mind did the reflexive thing of pushing them back to the deep dark hole where they belonged. But in her dreams she was revisited by lucid windows into a world she had been to, and emerged irrevocably changed.

The last dream, just before she lapsed into the deepest of sleeps that would finally cure her of the raging fever, was a more peaceful one. Erik was gone; she was lonely, and she was crying, crying and choking up a well of tears that never seemed to stop, until something stirred in her, kicked her lightly and shook her from her misery. Her stomach was bursting; a flash of pain and a tearing sensation, then something soft and wriggling and _alive_ lay in her arms, and she was laughing with tears still streaming down her face. Everything was alright; everything was forgiven.

Marguerite, back with Joseph who had managed to end his business trip to London a few days early, sat in an armchair across the living room facing her elder sister and her husband David. The fire burned bright in the hearth, casting warm flickering slivers of light onto their faces and softening the lines on Agathe Giry's face as she sat passive in the corner.

It was Matilde who was supposed to have spoken first; instead Meg raised her previously bowed head and said, "So this is where we part."

Matilde nodded. "David and I have decided to sell this house. We have found a more suitable abode nearer to Paris where we could send our children to a public school, when they arrive." She smiled slightly as David laid a proud hand on his wife's growing stomach. "And Meg, you will no doubt want separate quarters of your own – now that you're about to have your own family, after all."

"Meg and I have decided to stay on until we have confirmed the best location – which will not be long now," Joseph replied.

"And this house and all the property belonging to it shall to Agathe…."

"No."

Meg started. "Maman?"

"I will be sad to leave this dear house, which I have called home for many a year." She smile. "In fact, I remember my happiness the day your father all but insisted I take up permanent residence here, as part of the Klimt family. But I feel this place has gone somewhat stale; dusty from disuse, even. You girls are hardly home anymore, and soon you will not be here at all; as for Christine, she will most likely be staying with one of you – "

"You needn't talk about me like I'm not in the room," a quiet, slightly rusty voice said.

All were startled to see the youngest Klimt sister standing a few paces behind the sofa where Matilde and David now sat.

"Christine," Matilde spoke, weak-kneed suddenly after months of being strong. Meg sprang out of her chair like a jack-in-the-box and in two bounds was at her younger sister's side.

"You always were the first to cry," Christine noted at the blonde girl's already brimming eyes. Then something hard and miserable in her dissolved, and she gladly let Meg support her to the couch – how grown up she looked, this slim young woman at her side! What had happened to the family pet? – which she sank gratefully into. Her head leaned on Matilde's shoulder for a while, and the elder girl's arm placed itself around her shoulder.

"Someday, Christine, we shall insist on hearing of all your adventures," Agathe said drily, though her own trembling hands betrayed her emotions. Christine was not fooled for a second; she held out her arms, rather thin from the fever, and the greying woman embraced her while weeping heartily. Soon Matilde's face and handkerchief were also damp. The two men hovered awkwardly over the whole scene, entirely unsure of how to deal with the unabashedly feminine display of emotions. Then the corner of David's mouth twitched and he said to Christine, "If only your Raoul were here."

"Raoul was never mine," Christine replied. "He was somebody else's from the minute I said no to him."

"Still," said Joseph, "he'll always have a spot for you in his heart, especially after rescuing you from that godforsaken place – "

She smiled, laughed a little – the first laugh in a long while. "It was hardly the conventional rescue with the damsel running right into the knight's arms, Joseph – you _are _Joseph, aren't you? I barely recognized you, you were such a monkey then. From the look on his face he must have expected to slay the enemy or die trying. Oh, he _is_ a good fellow." She sighed. "But you were saying, Mam – that you'll be gone? You'll be leaving?" A shadow creased her brow.

"Oh, well…an old bat like me can't possibly have much use for such a big house, and it'll be awful lonely with all of you gone…"

The girl's cheeks turned pink, and there was a sign of the old excited flush. "All of us? Whoever said anything about me leaving? Where would I go?"

"Well, we assumed you'd stay with either one of us, Christine," said Matilde. "Not that it'd be any trouble; we'd love to have you."

"Have me what – be a brick around your neck when you're all exhausted from juggling babies? I just might decide to remain a spinster and be a burden on you for the rest of your lives, you know." Her face was deadpan, and sparked a series of smiles from those around her. "No, Mam Giry, I'm staying here with you and cooking your meals like you've cooked mine for so many years, and that's final."

Agathe was speechless. "Why, you dear girl!" was all she could say as they hugged once more. And she gasped again: "You dear girl!" as if she couldn't believe it. And all was silent for a while, but a vein on contentedness ran through the family, as if they were whole again.

The subtle aches were growing worse. She often awoke slightly green in the face, as the mirror attested in the morning. There was no hiding it any more: she was carrying his child.

On mornings like these she was filled with a dread that her baby would be born with a face of melting wax, great drooping lumps filled with the redness of a squalling newborn. She could imagine the shock in the midwife's face, followed by that dark look she had seen before during a cousin's birth once when the child was a weak, writhing, armless thing with tiny fingers emerging from the armpits where the limbs should have been. The look that spoke what no one could bring themselves to say: that the child should be given a merciful death.

It was not that she abhorred Erik's deformity; a hundred times had she kissed that face and saw not the abnormality of the half-eaten nose and warped cheekbones, but the tenderness and passion within the burning amber eyes. But she could not bear to think of their child's future, a life of being shunned and hated and mocked by children who knew no better. He or she should not be psychologically scarred like Erik was: she would not have it. At the same time she braced herself for many a trying year ahead: come what may, she would keep the child.


	16. The Story of a Girl

**Chapter 16**

**The Story of a Girl**

I won't recall the names and places

of each sad occasion

But that's no consolation

here and now

So what happens now?

Where am I going to?

Evita

He had come in search of redemption.

Instead he had found more pain. And a black, empty void to pour it into.

The Palais Garnier was the most lavishly built opera house in the whole of France. Towering granite angels greeted patrons outside the grand entrance. Inside, the frescoed walls formed a heavenly mosaic stretching up and outwards, impossibly high, met by the curlicued heads of golden pillars and lavish triple-tiered chandeliers, so heavy it appeared they would fall on a wealthy patron's head at any moment. And the audience flocking to the operas were almost as ornately decorated: hair piled ridiculously high and laden with gems of every colour, frock coats of green and midnight blue and deep crimson that matched the tasselled velvet curtains of the auditorium, ladies' fans affixed with everything from sequins to peacock feathers.

As the evening trailed into night and the patrons wore off, the opera house would put out its lights so that only the tall thin candles lining the stairways would remain aflame, casting long shadows and outlining intricate silhouettes, transforming the opulent gaudiness into something elegant and romantic. Silence fell over the Palais as actors and stagehands retired to their quarters, as the cleaners swept the last of the grime and turned off the many gas lamps. And finally only one would walk its echoing halls: a lone figure known as the Phantom of the Opera.

If you listened to the silence long enough, you would hear a deep but subtle vibration from beneath: something stirring and beautiful and haunted, the gently dropping notes of an organ swelling into a grand crescendo and then ebbing again. You would hear the soul of the opera house, the ghost who wandered its labyrinths, the genius who composed the songs for its tragic romances and great epic battles.

The boy who had come to this concoction of light and grandeur with agony and darkness in his heart was now a man who wore shadows as his clothing, who was a master with trickery and deception, but also with tenderness and all things musical. Here he carved out his legacy, a legacy that would remain long after the man was gone. And poor Elissa who had died at the hands of a cruel drunkard was a statue, a perfect statue of alabaster skin with a head of dark tumbling curls, her beard shaved away to reveal the beauty that had never shone when she was alive. He kept the shell of her as alive as death would allow, preserving her with the chemicals of an embalmer and artfully painting her lips and rouging her cheeks until finally she was the most lifelike doll anyone ever laid eyes on. Not, of course, that there were many to see her. Only him, her closest friend in life and now the guardian of her body. He was obsessed with detail, down to the tailoring of the gown he made for her, poring over every sequin and tuck and shirring.

His obsessive half-mad nature would not show itself in full bloom until later; meanwhile, the managers and staff of the Palais Garnier tolerated his artistic eccentricity and insistence on anonymity – for want of a name, they called him 'Monsieur le Fantome' or 'Opera Ghost' and left it at that. They would have questioned his strange practices more, did he not produce such winning ballads and plays as to draw huge flocks of theatre-goers, making the name of Garnier known far and wide. They did not know that in every young female lead he saw the shadow of Elissa, and this shadow was to grow particularly strong in a fifteen-year-old girl named Cristina Daae. She was a ballerina, a floating swan of a girl whose every movement was like the skilful fluttering of a geisha's fan. It seemed she was perfectly made: even her fingers tapered into sensitive pink-tipped ends, and her legs were a series of fleshly arches and firm supple muscle. It was her voice and lips, and her quiet dignity, that reminded him of his dead friend. And in a soft light, with her face upturned she was the spitting image of Elissa. Needless to say, he pursued her relentlessly.

He remembered vividly the night when she stood alone on the rooftop of the opera house with snow in her hair. Beneath her red wool cloak she wore only a pale yellow cotton dress, hardly adequate protection against the wintry weather. Yet she did not seem cold, immersed as she was in deep thought which was broken by his presence.

"I did not mean to intrude, mademoiselle," he began.

She smiled, hesitant yet so sure of herself. "Oh, you did not, Monsieur le Fantome. I was merely star-gazing."

"Ah, you know me?"

"Hardly a soul does not. You are quite the favourite subject of common gossip."

How he loved her eloquence, and her gentle courage! "You do not fear me?"

"Need I?"

He was not sure what to reply.

"You seem the perfect gentleman. May I ask…what you are doing conversing with a common dancing girl?"

"Why should I not? I am no more important than any of us; I write the operas, you perform it; we are like cogs in the same mechanism, all playing to the same tune."

She laughed a little, and he fell ever more deeply in love with her. "I do love your style of expression, monsieur. You've a most impressive turn of phrase." And, she dared a little complement: "Also, you've a most beautiful voice."

"Pardon my interest, but from the pensive look in your eyes I could tell you were not just 'star-gazing'. What thoughts run through your proud little head?"

She seemed troubled then, and her honest brown eyes clouded just a little. "Oh, if you must know…" There was a long pause before the bomb dropped. "I am being courted. By the Comte de Chagny."

If she noticed that he stiffened and his eyes burned from the eyeholes of the mask, she did not show it. "It is a difficult decision I must make, monsieur. If I accept, I can no longer pursue my life's work, which is ballet – it is all I have ever done, it is my greatest passion. You know it is not decent for a respectable married woman to be a dancing girl, what more a Comtesse. But if I do not…" She sighed. "Phillippe de Chagny is the Palais' wealthiest patron. To turn him down, well, it may upset him – and he is remarkably influential in society's circles, or so Maman says. He may well withdraw his sponsorship. And…besides, I cannot be a ballerina forever. At some point I have to think of my future."

She looked even more fragile in her gloominess, and Erik could not help it: he reached out to embrace her, and she let him. "So young, and forced to grow up so quickly," he sighed into her lightly scented hair.

She shook her head. "I have no choice. The Comte will not wait for long; I shall have to give him an answer by the day after tomorrow." Cristina leaned into the shoulder that was offered without thinking. "Oh, but I am not ready to be a wife, monsieur, nor a mother," she confessed.

How frank she was with him – she must have thought him a father figure whom she could confide in! If only she knew the truth – that he was besotted with her, and his feelings toward her were most unfatherly. Oh, Cristina….

In his twisted and mercurial mind he saw only one way out of this, one way to win the young girl's freedom and clear a path for him to love her: the Comte de Chagny must die.

It was a murder of the most calculated kind, a murder that was at once dainty and deadly. Clever poisons would not do the trick: there was always the chance he might draw attention just before he died, or that he would go gruesomely blue in the lips and indicate foul play even to the least observant of eyes. No, this was one death that must be followed by mystery and fear first, discovery and blame second.

The Phantom was a master with the Punjab lasso, a cunningly simple device of knotted rope made to pull like a noose. With one tug of precisely the right strength he could snap a neck cleanly. Half a second was all it took and the victim would not even have cried out, but not too severely that the eyes would bulge and the tongue hang out after it was done. This was how they found the Comte Phillippe de Chagny: slumped serenely in his regular box seat, only that his neck was at an odd angle and his dark blue eyes stared blankly at the frescoed ceiling of the theatre. Cristina saw through it all and knew who the murderer was, and when he came to her again the following night, she would not answer the door though he knocked at it frantically. Again he tried the next day, and the next, leaving her messages and roses of the finest variety with velvet red petals, sometimes tied with a silk ribbon or accompanied by a beautiful brooch. She never read any of his letters, and the roses were left to wilt, though the brooches and trinkets were invariably and gleefully nabbed by some other ballerina.

One evening as he was wearily yet hopefully trudging past the ballet dormitories, a redhead shyly slipped him a note, then hasted away with a blush spreading over her pale face. He looked down at the paper as he unfolded it: it was a brief letter from her.

_Monsieur Fantome,_

_I have deeply regretted our meeting on the rooftop not so long ago. Had I known you would take such drastic action toward the Comte upon knowing of his proposal, I would not have uttered a word. As such, I feel partially responsible for his untimely and undeserved death, and you have pinned this guilt on me. _

_I am inclined to believe that your intentions were good, but nonetheless I cannot resume acquaintance with a man who is so unpredictable as to be a caring gentleman one day, and a cold-blooded murderer the next. My sincere apologies,_

_Cristina_

Thus began his descent into madness. The musical compositions grew increasingly dark, the plays increasingly morbid. In the finale of _The Hunchback of Notre Dame_, the famous soprano Aurora Giudecelli, who played the gypsy Esmeralda, was hung from the gallows. When her neck broke with an audible _snap_ it was discovered that the false contraption had been replaced with a real one! The actors would never forget the ghastly scenario where they were forced to go on with the play, so that the audience would think the sound had been contrived for a realistic effect.

As for Cristina, she seemed to fade as the days went by, until the vibrant butterfly she had once been was a wraith who danced just as well, but with a struggling spirit and an absence of vigour, eyes and limbs drifting listlessly after the show was over. She saw the havoc wreaked by the Phantom upon the opera house, and it was guilt finally that ate at her, guilt that she should be the subject of his destructive obsession.

A stagehand named Joseph Buquet was the one to finally call the police on Erik, and accordingly he was the next to die. He was strangled, same as Phillippe, with his body intact and bloodless save his eyeballs, which were missing – neatly carved out to leave behind two gaping holes. With this trail of bodies in his wake, the Phantom of the Opera left the underground lair which had been his home for so long, disappearing quietly, without a trace. The Opera Garnier eventually recovered from this horror and resumed its normal business, though it would never quite reach the heights of fame it once had with the ghostly composer as its puppet-master.


	17. Unexpected News

The Ghost is back! Yes he is! After a long hiatus (was it more than a year?) This story was started in 2005, and it is now the lovely end of February 2007. This is why I am not a professional author. I just don't have the discipline to go on with the story when the Muse disappears. (He is a fickle one, my Muse.) Anyway…. I understand the last chapter, 'Story of a Girl', caused a bit of confusion. It was actually a flashback of Erik's, which I inconveniently forgot to mention. I know, please hit me on the head with something hard! But that's not the point here. The point is, this tale is still alive, and hopefully it will not go to sleep again for too long after this.

**Chapter 17**

**Unexpected News**

"You are quite mad," Meg stated calmly. "Quite mad."

"To bring shame upon the family name? Perhaps I am." Christine folded her arms resolutely. "But I am keeping it nonetheless."

"Oh, to hell with the family name! It's your name I worry about, Christine. Will you hide forever from society with… with your bastard child?"

The youngest Klimt sister bared her teeth instinctively and clutched her rounding belly. "Don't you dare call it that!" she hissed – at that moment, she wanted to slap Marguerite, but constrained herself, surprised at her ferocity.

Instantly the insistence on Meg's fair face dimmed. "I'm sorry. I'm – I'm so sorry, Christine…I didn't know what I was saying…."

"It's alright." The brunette sat down. "I'm not being myself lately." She smiled sadly. "And you're right – it _is _a bastard child. I suppose…" A strange light dawned in her eyes. "I suppose I'm beginning to think of him as my husband. Perhaps he's been my husband all along."

She remembered that dark marriage of not so long ago. No wedding bells, no flowers; only a drunk chalice, and their fervent words whispered to each other in a hidden world where no one could hear them. She could almost feel the coolness of the brooch touch her skin through the thin fabric of her blouse…and his hand on her, and how she wanted him all over again, but for those dreadful final words –

Slowly Christine reached up to touch the pearl comb in her hair. She took it out and cradled it in her hands. "One of his gifts to me. He liked to see me wear it whenever I dressed up for dinner.

Instantly the insistence on Meg's fair face dimmed. "I'm sorry. I'm – I'm so sorry, Christine…I didn't know what I was saying…."

"It's alright." The brunette sat down. "I'm not being myself lately." She smiled sadly. "And you're right – it _is _a bastard child. I suppose…" A strange light dawned in her eyes. "I suppose I'm beginning to think of him as my husband. Perhaps he's been my husband all along." She held out the comb to Meg, who looked at it warily before taking it, as if afraid it would hold some remnant of _his _presence.

"What's his name?"

"Erik. His name is Erik."

Meg fingered the multiple pearls that formed delicate spirals on the seashell-like ridge. "So he wasn't a ghost."

Christine smiled. "Can a ghost do this?" She ran a hand down the curve of her stomach.

They sat in silence for a while, then Meg reached out to squeeze her hand. "No matter what happens, Christine, no matter what anyone says about you…you'll always have us."

Tears stung her eyes. "I don't deserve a family like you."

"Oh, yes you do," the blond woman replied, and then they were hugging like they would never see each other again.

In a small but popular tavern down south of where the Klimt family lived, a dark hunched figure sat at the far corner of the bar with a full quart of absinthe in front of him that went untouched. Three times now the bartender had eyed him, this curious character who evidently preferred glaring at his drink to downing it. He had come alone and sat down and growled an order, and had not spoke a word or moved an inch since.

He was a strange man, a man who had once been tall and imposing but now appeared shrunken; what might have been a handsome figure with a spine as straight as a youth's and a virile gait was drooping and mournful. Gaunt shoulders framed a hulking mass of shadows that was so much a part of the surrounding darkness that it might not have been entirely solid. But from the fold of the hood peeked a single glinting eye that was most fierce and alert. Heroes would have quaked at the very glance at that feral eye, though not so long ago a young girl had faced its full glare without a trace of crumbling.

After what seemed like an eternity, the man shifted in his seat and rasped to the bartender: "What news of the Klimt family?"

Monsieur Gilles had nearly jumped out of his skin at this abrupt animation of what he had suspected was a spectre borne of his imagination. "Arnaud Klimt's family, sir? The man who disappeared an' died back while ago?"

"Aye, that man."

"Well, I 'spect his daughters must've all gotten hitched by now, save the one who went missing like her poor ol' da," he said, recalling the rampant gossip that spread regularly through the pub like wildfire. "But there was word of her having returned home. Ay, there was – heard it from the jam-peddler meself."

"And she's…alright?"

Gilles shrugged. "She's alive, if that's what you mean. Appeared to be all in'un piece. Why'd you want to know, anyway?" he asked, curiosity piqued. "You're not tellin' me you be after her hand…no?" He winked.

"No…I – am merely a concerned relative. And I admit my reputation has been somewhat disagreeable of late, so I would appreciate it if you didn't leak out word of my presence to anyone – Christine's family included."

"Oh, so Christine's her name, issit?" The squat, moustached man raised an eyebrow. "Don't worry, monsieur, I wouldn'ta told a soul – saved if they paid me such an unrefusable sum ferrit." He laughed, but was quickly sobered by the stranger's immovable silence. There was no more sound from the man, and for all one knew he might never have spoken an all.

The music played; the customers drank and got red-faced; all the world went on as normal. Shortly after taking but a sip of his drink, the golden-eyed man rose from his seat in a surprisingly graceful manner and walked out, Gilles noted, with a new purpose to his stride – and for just a moment there was a hint of the man he once was, tall and proud and noble.

Christine was nothing short of delighted at the sudden visitor to the Klimt household. "Nadir Khan! Is that really you!" she exclaimed, and with a liberal show of affection that Agathe _tsk-ed_ at, enveloped her old friend in a hug.

Nadir was an intriguing sort of man, small and dark and sharp. With a long history as one of the senior stagehands at the Opera Garnier, he had retired for some years and looked every inch the French gentleman in a well-cut tweed suit and polished shoes that gleamed like a beetle's back. In place of a cravat, however, was a rich red silk scarf with vaguely Oriental embroidery, the only sign of outward eccentricity. But if you looked into his piercing black eyes, you knew that he was the most curious character you would ever meet.

"My dear girl," he greeted in a familiar velvety voice with a faint Persian accent. "You look well enough, I see. And with child, too!" He did not congratulate her as most people would, but Christine did not need spoken approval: she knew he was as proud of her as when she was a little girl playing with his handmade toys.

Agathe Giry was similarly pleased at the sight of him. "I'll put the tea on to boil," she said and hurried out of the parlour.

"I can't even remember the last time I saw you," she exclaimed, clasping his dry warm hand. I remember you made all sorts of curious contraptions, little shiny machines with whirring noises and puffs of smoke…You don't by any chance still have that monkey-box, do you?"

His smile faded a little. "Alas, that box was not mine to keep, dear child; it was crafted by a man to whose genius I cannot dream of measuring up to. Have you never wondered why the monkey wore a turban, Christine? It was made in the likeness of me, back when I walked the Opera House in my Persian garb."

"So this man was a close friend of yours?"

"In a way I was closer to him than any other. I daresay I was the one he trusted most."

"What is his name?"

"Was, my child. I have no doubt that he has perished a long time ago, after fleeing the Palais Garnier in his love-induced madness."

"Love…?"

"Yes, a hopeless infatuation with a young dancer named Cristina. It was only in death that she became famous; she was found with slit wrists on the opera stage, holding a red rose tied with a ribbon. It's a romantic tragedy today still, and inspired countless novels and plays."

Christine smiled sadly. "Sometimes I think humanity is more inspired by tragedy than by joy."

"Indeed. As was Erik."

The warm smile went very still and white. "What did you say?"

Seeing Christine's rigidly pale face, Nadir took hold of her wrists to steady her. "You knew this man, Christine?"

Her mouth was falling open, quivering. "Knew him? Oh, my Lord!"

He studied her face rapidly, eyes darting and piercing, and knew that something was not right. "Christine, is there something you are not telling me?"

All the nightmares were revisiting her on the spot, one by one, reeling faster and faster in her head until they became an endless juxtaposition of horrifying images. Suddenly she was very afraid. She clutched her belly. A sharp pain racked her body.

With surprising strength she broke from Nadir's grasp and ran out of the hall, out of the house and into the rainy evening.


	18. Innocent

Warning: following chapter contains considerable amount of harmless sap. Diabetics beware. ;D

**Chapter 18**

**Innocent**

_Those who have seen your face_

_Draw back in fear_

_I am the mask you wear…._

_Your spirit and my voice_

_In one combine._

Midnight cloaked the sky with velvet, drowning out the feeble starlight. A distant galloping drew closer with a straining precarious rhythm that reflected the heartbeat of the rider.

Christine was nearing the last of her strength. She was all but dying from anxiety that tearing across the hills on the back of a stallion might tear the baby from its womb. Surely she was a fool for endangering the life of her unborn child. But then, were she not here the child might never meet its father.

How did she know he'd be here? She did not. Perhaps some enchantment had been woven in that dark spectral castle that bound his presence to her senses. She felt a stirring of electric energy at his coming. The wind whipped through her dark tousled hair, the tamed curls that Agathe had painstakingly combed through each morning returned to their natural wildness. After Nadir's admittance of having known the Phantom, every trace of his existence – each memory of him – that she had been suppressing had come gushing back like a relentless river that would drown her with its force. She had run out of the house, he had chased after her, the eternal gentleman, clasping her hand in his dark fingers and demanding to know what it was that made her so pale. Not even caring that the rain was ruining his tweed coat and seeping into his polished shoes.

After that, after that he had led her to Erik. Not directly, but he had let slip the mention of the Phantom's appearance even though he knew that it would lead her to the reckless pursuit.

"My carriage had stopped in the midst of the forest path, on my way here, so I could get out and stretch my old legs," said Nadir. "You know I love to take the scenic route, hence the ride through the woodsy part of the province. It is quite safe, as you will know if ever you have ventured through in your childhood. But that evening – it was twilight almost – something disturbed the air. Not a malicious something, no, but like a restless disturbed soul, rather. As I was getting back in the carriage – for the driver too was feeling ill at ease, he must have sensed it too – there was a rustle in the bushes, or the leaves of a low tree, I don't know. Then a flash of golden eyes – Christine, in my life I have never seen another pair like it. No wild animal possesses such a gaze. There was a sort of grunt, or quick intake of coarse and distinctly human breath – before he disappeared.

"He knew me, of course. If he laid eyes on me at all he would recognize me. But I guess the moment was not exactly one for reconciliation of old friendships; I left, he left, and perhaps we shall never see each other again.

"Christine," he warned, "Erik may not be much more than an …an animal now. I – I don't know how much of his right mind is still present, or whether the insanity that has always lurked at the corners of his soul has finally consumed him. whatever you do or say, my dear girl, do not provoke his temper – ever. Do not even dream of tempting his dark desires – be courteous, be affectionate but not overly so. My dear, it would calm me greatly of you would at least meet him in a place near civilization…in case you should need...some form of assistance."

"He is not a beast, Nadir," she had said softly. "He looks and often acts like one; but he is a man. He's just a man."

The look Nadir had gave her said this: all men are beasts. Human and animal are merely two halves of the coin.

And now there was no looking back. perhaps she, too, was an animal. There was no other explanation for the mindless hunger she now felt for his arms, his body, to be crushed by him and oh, to fight him again! to see the spark in his amber eyes that must be reflected in her own!

Dark senseless thoughts.

Now she waited.

And waited.

And then…

"My days have been a dream;

Yet if hope has flown away

In a night, or in a day,

In a vision, or in none,

Is it therefore the less gone?"

She opened her eyes to see the cloaked figure, gleaming golden eyes full of restrained passion. The hood overshadowed most of the face, the unmasked face.

The face of the man she loved.

Her open arms were met with the full sweet weight of his; and then he was lifting her down, gently, the familiar long fingers caressing her face in renewed wonder.

"Why do you touch me so, as if you have forgotten what I was like?" she demanded softly. "Kiss me as you used to. Now." And he did. They held each other so closely their limbs must be entwined, so complete and powerful a feeling it was that came over them.

"Nadir…" she began.

"Shhh." Again they kissed; their tongues met. "There is no one else in the world now, save for…for you…." Then the poetic eloquence came to a halt, and he dropped to his knees, sobbing rawly, deeply.

"I am a broken man, Christine," he murmured. "A broken man. And here you stand before me, whole and beautiful and…" Erik's tear-glazed eyes focused on her stomach. "With child? _My_ child?"

"Yes. Oh, yes. Our child."

The handsome mouth twisted into a scowl suddenly. "No!"

"What?"

"Look at this face. Look at this…face!" He threw back the hood to reveal the full hideousness of the lumps of bone and muscle, like wax dripping off a skull. "No child should inherit such a terrible curse. No! Christine, I cannot…will not lay eyes upon it, ever. I cannot see it stamped upon the face of another innocent. Give the babe away the moment it is born, or see me gone."

Now her mouth too turned down in fury. "Are you asking me to choose between you and the baby?"

"Did I say that? Perhaps, perhaps. Christine, darling, think of the happiness we shall have, finally, reunited at last. The child is…but a trifling matter. Perhaps we could raise him or her from afar. Let another take charge of its upbringing…and…"

Christine shook her head. "Listen to you. You are letting your fear of passing on your deformity blind you to the love that you might feel for your own offspring! Your son, your daughter! Erik, you were unloved by your own mother; would you turn the same harshness on our child?" She took his shoulders, forcefully. _"Would you?"_ she whispered?"

He shook his head. "Ah, but it is innocent, Christine. It is innocent."

"Exactly."

Slowly, with some trepidation, he laid a hand upon her belly. "I…" He was near speechless. "I feel it."

"Put your ear against me, Erik. Listen. Perhaps there is a heartbeat."

He did as she said. For a moment there was nothing. Then…a faint throbbing. A throbbing that grew stronger, a small but steady pulsing rhythm.

Tears gathered anew in his eyes. "Ah, my child!" And he listened on, and said again and again: "My child!"


End file.
